CRP, et ee od aes sare ° be ee: 
ee 


Rope 


Peon = . iwresey ye : : 
= : * : : z 3 i 5 ~ A res Meds . : Vere tyne Soy 
: : : : wre haac Shp 


pet red 
spect 


Shen Saahteis 
scan etaetaes : ; : aehistatet 


aes 
i 


Patel 


Bet 


ts 
fist 


ph frededy Gh eee: 
Vea SS 
Sites boas 


ete: 


eee 


See =o : Besta 


joan osuer 


WOT 


‘ 


me shncra ide serne aetec gts 


7 Pen 


GREEN GOLD OF YUCATAN 
SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


SILVER CITIES OF 
YUCATAN 


BY 


GREGORY MASON 


With a Preface by 


DR. HERBERT J. SPINDEN 


Assistant Curator of Mexican Archzology and Ethnology, Peabody Museum 
of Harvard. Illustrated with Drawings by Dr. Spinden 
and with Photographs 


WITH 32 ILLUSTRATIONS 
AND A MAP 


G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS 
NEW YORK—LONDON 


1927 


Copyright, 1927 
by 
Gregory Mason 


Made in the United States of America 


Dedicated 
TO 
HERBERT JOSEPH SPINDEN, LUDLOW GRISCOM, 
FRANCIS WHITING 


AND TO THE MEMORY OF 
OGDEN TREVOR McCLURG 


& 


i 
ri 


2s 


ACKNOWLEDGMENT 


My thanks are due first of all to the New York 
Times, which financed the Mason-Spinden Expedi-. 
tion; then to the Mexican Government, which per- — 
mitted the Expedition to enter territory where 
foreigners are not commonly welcomed; third, to 
Mr. George Palmer Putnam, the United Fruit Com- 
pany and the Chicle Development Company for 
advice in organization and—in the case of the last 
two,—for the use of invaluable facilities in the field. 
Finally, I am again indebted to the New York Times 
—and-to World’s Work and Motor Boating—for 
permission to use here in revised form certain mate- 
rial which has already been printed in the pages of 
those journals. 


GREGORY MASON. 


PREFACE 


EASTERN Yucatan is a coast of adventure where the 
trade winds of the tropics pile surf on coral reefs 
and where white temples of the ancient Mayas 
serve as landmarks for ships that wisely stand off. 
There is memorable beauty in the outer islands with 
slender palms leaning out from dunes of wave- 
broken coral. The shore line of the mainland ap- 
pears low and monotonous but on closer inspection 
vast shallow bays are revealed with mangrove mazes 
which once offered hidden harbors to the buc- 
caneers. The level unbroken forests of the Mexican 
territory of Quintana Roo are guarded by vigilant 
Mayas who still cherish in these wilds crumbling 
buildings of their ancestors. For generations these 
Indians have fought to stave off modern commercial 
civilization that on the raw edges of its expanding 
front shows anything but a pleasing parade of virtues. 

There is glamour and mystery enough in a quest 
of ancient cities in Central America, yet the finest 
part of the adventure is intellectual rather than 
physical, The thrill of breaking through the fron- 


Vil 


Vili PREFACE 


tiers of history into an unknown age is much deeper 
and more satisfying than that of merely entering 
closed territory at a slight risk of life and limb. 
After all, the chances of violent death are probably 
greater in modern cities than in the most backward 
lands. Eastern Yucatan will remain in my memory, 
not as a region where thorns scratch, insects bite, 
and boats capsize, but as a region where crumbling 
temples bear the unmistakable stamp of one of the 
New World’s greatest personalities. 

Quetzalcoatl, emperor of the Toltecs, and con- 
queror of the Mayas—priest, scientist and architect 
in one commanding individual—was a contemporary 
of Henry II and Richard the Lion Hearted. He 
died in far off days before a reluctant King John 
signed the Magna Charta of English liberties. His 
holdings in Mexico and Central America were several 
times more extensive than the holdings of those 
puissant monarchs of the Angevin line in France 
and the British Isles, his philosophy of life was 
richer and his contributions to the general history 
of civilization were greater than theirs. Old stone 
walls in eastern Yucatan are mute evidence of the 
commerce, religion and art that Quetzalcoatl built 
up as the expression of his practical and ideal State. 
He encouraged trade that reached from Colombia 
to New Mexico, he preached a faith of abnegation 


PREFACE ix 


and high ethics which later led speculative church- 
men to identify him with St. Thomas, and in sculp- 
ture and architecture he formed a new and vital 
compound of the previous achievements of two dis- 
tinct peoples, the Toltecs of the arid Mexican high- 
lands and the Mayas of the humid lowlands. We 
can restate three of Quetzalcoatl’s personal triumphs 
in astronomical science corresponding to the years 
1168, 1195 and 1208. We know that he conquered 
the great city of Chichen Itza in 1191 and erected 
therein a lofty temple which still bears his name and 
a round tower which is still an instrument for exact 
observation of the sun and moon. We know that 
Quetzalcoatl set up a benign system of local self 
government among conquered tribes of Guatemala 
which made those peoples relate his praises in song 
and story. We know that after his death he was 
made a god because during his life he had been ‘‘a 
great republican.” 

The archeology of eastern Yucatan belongs for 
the most part to the three centuries which inter- 
vened between the reign of Quetzalcoatl and the 
coming of the Spaniards. The buildings of Chichen 
Itza are copied at Paalmul and Muyil, settlements 
which pretty clearly grew up along one of the im- 
portant trade routes from Chichen Itza to the far 
south. To be sure there are some vestiges in the 


x PREFACE 


region of the much older First Empire of the Mayas, 
several monuments having been discovered in recent 
years which bear dates in the fourth and fifth cen- 
turies after Christ. But the cultural facts of the 
splendid First Empire are already known from a 
score of magnificent ruins on the plains of Peten, 
and in the valleys of the Usumacinta and Motagua 
rivers. Science was really in greater need of evidence 
on the last phases of Mayan civilization and this 
evidence we found in the territory we visited. 

There is a more tragic story not without interest 
to the student of the rise and fall of civilizations, 
namely, the narrative of a clash between two races, 
the American Indian and the white man of Europe. 
In eastern Yucatan the unequal contest of brown” 
breasts against bullets has waged since 1519. Some 
persons may see in the broken men who survive in 
little independent communities of rebellious Mayas 
only degradation and inferiority. Yet over and 
over again the Spanish colonists, for all their coercive 
engines, were driven out of this territory which was 
the first part of Mexico on which they set foot. 

The terrible War of the Castes devastated Yucatan 
some eighty years ago, one of the causes, according 
to a scholarly work recently published in Merida, 
being the exportation of Maya Indians to Cuba as 
slaves. The eastern portion of the peninsula has 


PREFACE x1 


not been reconquered since that time. One en- 
counters in the darkening forest Christian churches 
which are no less ruinous than the more ancient 
temples of the Indians. It seems that Father Time 
is impartial when the figures of European saints and 
the grotesque faces of pagan gods fall beneath the 
weight of his hand. 

Although the Indios sublevados of Quintana Roo 
have managed to maintain their independent status 
their numbers have pitifully diminished. Under 
President Diaz a vigorous campaign was waged 
against them for twenty years but the recalcitrant 
natives allowed the Mexican generals to hold pre- 
cariously only the town of Santa Cruz and a few 
lines of communication. Then, as political strife 
developed in the Mexican capital itself, the garrisons 
were withdrawn. In 1918, the aboriginal population 
found a still more deadly enemy in the world epidemic 
of influenza. Recently American silver has been 
more successful over this renegade people than 
Mexican lead. The insistent demand for chewing 
gum among the children and salesladies of the United 
States has brought about-a benevolent penetration 
into Quintana Roo of hand mirrors, glass pearls and 
alcohol flavored with anis seeds. 

When offered the opportunity of joining with Mr. 
Gregory Mason and several others in an exploring 


xii PREFACE 


expedition to Cozumel Island and the adjacent 
mainland, I gladly accepted, first because the region 
was difficult of access and offered great promise of 
finding unknown ruins of the ancient civilization, 
secondly, because the narrative of adventures and 
discoveries would direct public attention to the 
grandiose archeology of the Mayas. I shall let Mr. 
Mason tell what we found. 

In preparing the book that is before us—which 
is directed to the general public whose support 
archeology needs—Mr. Mason has had the codpera- 
tion and good wishes of his fellow adventurers. 


HERBERT J. SPINDEN. 


PEABODY MUSEvuM, 
CAMBRIDGE, MaAss., 
January 27, 1927. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 


I.—TuHE First FAMILIES OF AMERICA . . 
II—WE HEAR oF A RUINED Clty 
IIJ.—RAreE BirDs 
IV.—AND COMMON CROCODILES 
V.—LostT IN ‘ DELIRIUM TREMENS”’ 
VI.—A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 
VII—TuHE Faces oF OLD Gops 
VIII.—A Lost TRADE ROUTE . 
IX.—TuHeE City or THE DAWN 
X.—THE GREEKS OF THE WEST . 
XI.—SECRET SHRINES By Lost LAGOONS 
XII.—NATIVE WOMEN 


XIII.—Tue TEMPLES oF TABI AND THE HILL OF 
OKopP 


XIV.—THE First AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE 


XV.—WHAT FORBIDDEN CITIES MAy TELL 


127 
152 
165 
199 
217 
245 


270 


286 


314 
328 


Sora = 
2 a 


agi s P j ; 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 
PAGE 


EL CasTILLO—A PYRAMID TEMPLE AT MvuvIL 
Frontispiece 


Mar SHOWING THE ROUTE OF THE EXPEDITION 
AND THE NEW ARCHAZOLOGICAL SITES DIs- 
COVERED 7 Z : : : : } 16 


A Goop SEA AND Mupb Boat wWAs THE H. S. Albert 28 


A RARE MOMENT WHEN BOTH SPINDEN AND MASON 
WERE SILENT... é : AReS 


GRISCOM’S FORTUNE AT ASCENSION BAY : .- 102 


SOME OF THE DRUNKEN MAYAS OF SANTA CRUZ DE 
BRAVO ; ¥ : : Mel 32 


WE HunG McC ura’s SHARK FROM OuR Bow— 
A WARNING TO HIS KIND : enrAG 


SPINDEN AND MASON BEFORE REMAINS OF A FISH- 
ERMAN’S SHRINE . : : : . 150 


WE FIND AN OUTPOST OF THE COMMERCIAL CITY 
OF MUYIL . : : : . , . 160 


FROM THIS HIGH BUILDING CANOES APPROACHING 
Muyit WERE SIGHTED BEFORE THEY COULD 
SEE THE CITY ‘ : : ; g . 166 
XV 


Xvi ILLUSTRATIONS 


FACING 


VIGIA DEL LAGO (‘‘THE WATCH ON THE LAKE’’) . 
THE CHIEF TEMPLE OF TULUM 


THE EAR-RINGED CHIEF OF THE TULUM INDIANS, 
‘“GENERAL’’ PAULINO CAAMAL 


TULUM’S TEMPLE OF THE FRESCOES 


BEHIND THIS TEMPLE TO SOME Gop oF MAYA 
SAILORS WE FOUND THE WALLED TOWN OF 
XKARET 


McCiurGc Took THE First Motor BOAT INTO 
XKARET HARBOR 


Tuts ‘‘LIGHTHOUSE-TEMPLE”’ IS THE ‘‘ BROKEN 
PYRAMID’? WHICH GIVES THE RUINS BEHIND 
IT THE NAME PAALMUL 


On AN ALTAR IN THE UPPER STORY OF THIS BUILD- 
ING AT PAALMUL WE FOUND THE FRAGMENTS 
OF A TERRA CoTTaA GoD 


FRONT VIEW OF ROUND BUILDING AT PAALMUL 
WHICH WAS PERHAPS AN ASTRONOMICAL OB- 
SERVATORY 


BACK VIEW OF ROUND PAALMUL ‘‘ OBSERVATORY ’”’ 


THIS BUILDING ON THE HARBOR OF CHAKALAL CON- 
TAINS MURALS OF A STYLE NEVER FOUND BE- 
FORE IN EAST-COAST ART . 


WALL PAINTINGS FOUND IN A TEMPLE AT CHAK- 
ALAL e . 7 e e 


PAGE 


184 
206 


210 


214 


224 


228 


236 


238 


242 


248 


252 


256 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


THE LABORERS WHO BUILT THE STONE TEMPLES 
PROBABLY LIVED IN HuTs LIKE THESE OF THE 
MopDERN INDIANS OF ACOMAL 


TEMPLE FOUND AT ACOMAL WITH CURIOUS PINE- 
APPLE SHAPED OBJECT ON OUTDOOR ALTAR 
BEFORE IT . ; ; 


McCLurG, SPINDEN, MASON, WHITING, GRISCOM 


THOUGH COZUMEL ISLAND IS SMALL, SPINDEN 
FouNpbD RUINS THE THICK BUSH HAD HIDDEN 
FROM PREVIOUS EXPLORERS 


THE ‘‘ LIGHTHOUSE-TEMPLE’’ ON COZUMEL ISLAND 


BUILDINGS AT ACOMAL SHOWED AN INTERESTING 
USE oF STUCCO FACES 


A Lucky HALT FoR LUNCH LED TO THE DISCOVERY 
oF OKOP 


THE GREAT MOMENT WHEN SPINDEN REACHED 
THE TOP OF A PYRAMID AT OKOP 


WE FounpD MAGNIFICENT SPANISH CHURCHES DE- 
SERTED TO THE HoT, SILENT BUSH 


Tue AUTHOR WAS GLAD TO REACH ‘“‘ CIVILIZATION ”’ 
AT CHICHEN ITZA 


SMALL WOODEN CROSSES PUT BY MODERN INDIANS 
ON ALTARS OF ANCIENT TEMPLES 


XV11 
FACING 
PAGE 


260 


268 


272 


276 


280 


284 


298 


300 


304 


308 


332 


Silver Cities of Yucatan 


Silver Cities of Yucatan 


CHAPTER I 
THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 


DEEP in the thick jungles of Central America are ©. 
dozens of splendid stone cities, abaridoned centuries 
ago. Of the mysterious race which built:them there 
remain only a few thousand Indians, ignorant of 
their glorious past. 

The lovely architecture of these desolate palaces, 
the faded paintings on crumbling temple walls, the 
grace and symmetry of sculpture found on monu- 
ments buried under the matted undergrowth of who 
knows how many years, all stamp the builders of 
these cities as the creators of the highest civilization 
that flourished in the New World before the coming 
of Europeans. ‘‘New World?” Outstanding facts 
in the history of these first Americans have now been 
traced back to the ancient days when Thales was 
founding Greek philosophy. 

Whence came these people, whom we call the 

3 


“6 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Mayas? What was the catastrophe that wiped out 
their civilization so suddenly that no tradition of 
them has been found among the Indians who to- 
day inhabit their territory? When we enter their 
deserted cities we feel the poignantly tantalizing 
quality of the mystery that surrounds a magnificent 
ship discovered in mid-ocean with sails set, gear in 
order and not a soul on board. 

Why was this great ship, bearing no outward sign 
of wreck or misfortune, so abruptly abandoned? 
Why were these temples, palaces and astronomical 
observatories of cunningly carved white limestone 
suddenly left to the bats, the lizards and the sinister 
little owls the later Indians called ‘‘moan birds” 
and associated with death? It is conceivable that 
any race might forget its humble beginnings in the 
dawn of history. But how came legend to be so 
silent about the collapse of a cultivated nation, some 
of whose greatest cities were inhabited as late as 
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries of the Chris- 
tian era—perhaps later? One reiterates the query, 
one gropes for an answer, till the imagination aches. 

The expedition which Dr. Herbert J. Spinden of 
the Peabody Museum of Harvard and I are leading 
through Eastern Yucatan will diligently seek data 
to piece out the dim record of these vanished builders. 
At present the earliest date in that record is August 


THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 5 


6, 613 B.c. Harvard has just announced Spinden’s 
proof that that was when these ancient Americans 
began to give each day its consecutive number and 
to keep a close tabulation of celestial events. 

_ We should be particularly pleased to throw light 
on the abrupt downfall and disappearance of this 
mysterious people. Human interest, after all, is 
the fundamental appeal in this riddle, and one can- 
not stop wondering what became of the sailors who 
abandoned a full-rigged, seaworthy ship in mid- 
journey. 

The information the world now has is subject to 
revision in the light of future discoveries, and even 
in its entirety is sufficient merely to whet the appe- 
tite to know more. ‘There is no more fascinating 
hobby for the layman of a romantic and imaginative 
turn than to follow the attempts of scientists to find 
a satisfactory answer to this conundrum. And if he 
has been lucky, as I have, and has once seen a white 
temple rising through the green of tropical foliage, 
or has stood on an old pyramid awed by the silence 
of a whole city silver in the moonlight . . .!- What 
puzzle can compete for fascination with inscrutable 
_ hieroglyphs which contain now only secrets, although 
carved to proclaim facts? 

It was a widespread civilization as well as a high 
one, for it left the ornate facades of its urban centers 


6 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


over what is today British Honduras, Southeastern 
Mexico, two-thirds of Guatemala and part of “‘Span- 
ish Honduras.’’ To this oldest American civilization 
archeologists have agreed to give the name Maya 
(pronounce the first three letters like the pronoun 
my). This is aname of uncertain origin, connected 
with a late Yucatan capital called Mayapan. It has 
been extended to cover a great nation which once 
numbered many millions. 

It seems fair to give the Mayas the palm for 
culture existing in the Americas before the arrival 
of the Europeans. Of course, the over-advertised 
Aztecs never reached the level of the Mayas. A 
comparison with the Incas presents some difficulties, 
but as Dr. Spinden points out, ‘‘The Peruvians had 
no system of hieroglyphic writing and no carefully 
elaborated calendar.’’ They were thus unable to 
conserve intellectual gains. But the Mayas had a 
well developed system of hieroglyphs, mostly ideo- 
graphic, that is, consisting of abbreviated pictures 
of the thing intended or of an object associated with 
it. 

Understanding of this writing was probably con- 
fined to an educated minority, mainly the priests, 
who probably formed the ruling caste. We are able 
to read some 30 per cent of their hieroglyphs, but 
our knowledge is confined chiefly to numerals, as- 


THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 7 


tronomical symbols and signs for natural phenomena. 

Their calendar is now an open book and can be 
proved more accurate than the Julian Calendar of 
the Spanish conquerors—the same calendar that 
Greece and Russia abandoned only a few years ago. 
Moreover, the extraordinary astronomical science of 
the Mayas seems to have been built up without 
telescopes. Astronomical sighting lines marked with 
monuments were used to measure the true length 
of the year. | 

Of the Maya proficiency in painting, Spinden 
says, “‘In foreshortening they greatly excelled the 
Egyptians and Assyrians.”’ 

One of the most interesting things about these 
first Americans is that they were very religious. All 
their arts seem to have sprung from the religious 
impulse or to have been developed in interpreting 
it. Their gods and culture heroes had the physical 
attributes of reptiles, birds or lower mammals, al- 
though they were often somewhat partly humanized, 
like the beast gods of Egypt. 

Archeology really is not dry and dull. It is fas- 
cinating, intensely exciting. But, alas, the real 
romance of the search for knowledge about the first 
families of America, the Mayas, is often neglected 
by laymen in their eagerness to embrace flimsy 
myths and hifalutin fancies. 


8 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN | 


These fancies are mostly concerned with the as- 
sumption that the wonderful antiquities of the New 
World were the work of emigrants from Egypt, 
Burma, China or some other part of the Old World, 
real or imaginary. ‘The emotional associations with 
the Old World which the Bible has given us are a 
factor in our predilection for attributing the origin 
of everything to the other hemisphere. 

Thus, even to this day bobs up Lord Kings- 
borough’s thin theory that the stone ruins in Central 
America were the handiwork of the Lost Tribes o: 
Israel. However, the most persistent of all the 
myths is that the people we call Mayas were a 
colony of the lost continent of Atlantis, which Plato 
said Egyptian priests had told Solon had sunk be- 
neath the western ocean in prehistoric times. 

Of this long-lived theory one can only say that 
not a particle of proof has been offered. Indeed 
for the Atlantis myth itself, irrespective of alleged 
American connections, about the most that a care- 
ful critic can say is expressed by the Encyclopedia 
Britannica as follows: 

“‘It is impossible to decide how far this legend is 
due to Plato’s invention, and how far it is based on 
facts of which no record remains.” 

Most attempts to link up this extinct Central 
American culture with Old World origins are based 


THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 9 


on fortuitous traces of slight similarities in customs. 
But it should be remembered that two peoples, 
occupying wide apart portions of the globe, under 
similar conditions of living will be likely to develop 
similar institutions. If the climate is hot and there 
is straw, straw hats are apt to be devised by both 
nations. 

Because some stone figurines found in Yucatan 
have teeth filed in a manner still practised by certain 
tribes of Africa, it has been suggested that the stone 
cities of Central America were built by negroes. 

Some of the earliest explorers were entirely misled 
by the huge noses jutting from ‘‘mask panels”’ 
which adorn the facades of many a limestone temple. 
Failing to recognize the other features in the highly 
conventionalized faces containing these noses, these 
early explorers dubbed the stone snouts ‘‘elephant 
trunks.’’ As there are no elephants in the Americas, 
this mistake in identification led to the wild con- 
jecture that these temples must have been built by 
emigrants from a country of elephants, that is, 
India or Africa! 

Pretty certainly the truth is that these snouts 
belonged to Kukulcan, the Feathered Serpent, whose 
nose was commonly elongated in conventionalized 
Maya art. 

Some of the modern natives of Yucatan, who are 


fe) SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


called the Maya Indians, although their degree of 
relationship to the Great Builders is uncertain, wear 
at various times a short apron from waist to knees 
and a sort of towel wound around the head, with the 
ends hanging down the back. Garments similar to 
these may be found in bas-reliefs from Egypt, a 
fact which has been the basis for many a vigorous 
smoking-room argument that the ruins of Yucatan 
must have been built by Egyptians. It is astonish- 
ing how little proof satisfies the amateur scientist. 
There are among the Mayas, as there are among 
many other Indian tribes of Mexico, a good many 
persons with long, narrow eyes like the eyes of 
Orientals. This fact and the fact that some Chinese 
laundrymen in Merida learn Maya more easily than 
they learn Spanish has convinced not a few theorists 
that the stone palaces in the jungle were constructed 
by Chinese. 

In China I met an apparently reliable American 
who said he had found a reference in early Chinese 
history to a voyage made by a Chinese missionary 
three or four centuries after Christ. This earnest 
preacher of Buddhism seemed to have crossed the 
Pacific, coasted along what is now California and 
the west coast of America until he reached Central 
America. There, according to my friend’s transla- 
tion of Chinese history, he remained several years. 


THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 11 


But if such a voyage was made by a Buddhist 
missionary he was too late to found civilization in 
Central America. And it is just as likely that care- 
less early voyagers were blown from the so-called 
New World to the Old, as vice versa. 

It is surprising how many men seem to resent 
letting America have an early history of her own. 
A refreshing exception to monotonous dreams of 
Old World origins for the Mayas was provided by 
that indefatigable, though over-imaginative, French- 
American, Le Plongeon. This gentleman, whose ac- 
tive work in the field was as valuable as his subse- 
quent theorizing was useless, presented the world 
with the creed that Central America had been the 
cradle of the human race, and that the civilization 
of Europe, Asia, and Africa had been founded by 
emigrants from the isthmus between the Pacific 
Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Charmed by his 
originality, if nothing more, many of our fathers in 
the age of the bicycle flocked to the support of this 
garrulous Gaul. 

The leading archeologists of the world are agreed 
that the Mayas were an indigenous American race, 
that their early leaders neither sailed to Yucatan 
from China nor walked there from Atlantis across 
a “land bridge’’ of which there is no trace. Of 
course, we may some day learn that man originated 


12 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


in one definite, small area of the globe. But apart 
from such possible common origin of all races in 
the very remote past the Mayas can be confidently 
assigned beginnings in the western hemisphere. It 
is believed by the experts that this race started on 
the highlands of Mexico. Up there are archzologi- 
cal remains three thousand years old. There, too, 
are traces of legends about a great tribe which emi- 
grated from the shadow of Popocatepetl to Central 
America. And similarities in religion, art and social 
organization all strengthen the link between that 
advanced culture which flourished in Middle Amer- 
ica and the lesser civilizations which belonged to 
the so-called Nahua stock of upland Mexico—which 
included the Aztecs, whose fame is relatively greater 
than their accomplishments warranted. 

The oldest inscribed date of the Mayas yet found 
corresponds to 98 B.C. in our count. Between that 
first date in stone and the putting into operation of 
the Venus calendar which Spinden has recently 
proved was done in the sixth century B.c. there is 
a mysterious gap of more than four hundred years. 
Before history was written on stone there was al- 
most certainly an earlier civilization, when records 
were put down on skin and wood. And it is quite 
possible that stone monuments considerably older 
than any now known will be found. The most 


THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 13 


ardent skeptic of the great antiquity of Maya cul- 
ture would have a hard time proving that before 
the oldest known city was built other cities had not 
crumbled away. 

Remember, these temples are all built of limestone, 
a soft, friable material quick to disintegrate before 
the unchecked vegetable growth of the tropics. But 
somewhere, under favorable conditions, a very old 
stone relic may have escaped destruction. 

This is the sort of reflection which makes us chew 
our nails in impatience as our schooner, the H..S. 
Albert, fights a head wind in the shallow waters off 
British Honduras. Our course will be generally 
northward as we retrace the track of the clumsy 
high-pooped vessels of the first Spanish Discoverers 
in the effort to find a ruined city unknown to arche- 
ology. 

Columbus, on his fourth and last voyage, in 1502, 
just missed becoming the discoverer of Yucatan 
when he failed to follow a canoe believed to have 
been filled with Yucatecans, which he met off the 
coast of what is now Honduras. 

In 1517, another Spaniard, Cordoba, touched the 
east coast of Yucatan, near Cape Catoche and 
Mujeres Island, and saw ‘“‘a large town standing 
back from the coast about two leagues.’”’ Juan de 
Grijalva a year later sailed from Cuba to the Island 


14 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


of Cozumel. After claiming that land for his sover- 
eign with the usual blithe arrogance of his age, 
Grijalva crossed to the visible eastern shore of Yuca- 
tan, where his historian describes sighting ‘“‘three 
large towns separated from each other by about 
two miles.”’ 

Perhaps unfortunately for present knowledge, Gri- 
jalva decided not to land. 

Then, in 1519, came Cortez, who stopped in Yuca- 
tan only long enough to pick up the shipwrecked 
Spanish priest, Jeronimo de Aguilar, before proceed- 
ing along the coast to Vera Cruz, whence he marched 
inland. The discovery of great wealth in upland 
Mexico, and later in Peru, turned the attentions of 
the Spanish conquistadores from Yucatan, where 
little gold was to be had. The conquest of the hot 
lowlands, inhabited by the valiant Indians, was long 
delayed. The natives have never given up the 
struggle for independence and in the eastern part 
of the Yucatan peninsula, called Quintana Roo, they 
have retained a practical independence. 

some of the priests, and especially Landa, the 
second Bishop of Yucatan, left accounts of the old 
Indian life, but their writings were locked up in 
archives and escaped attention. 

The first real awakening of outside curiosity to- 
ward the mysterious stone cities in Yucatan and 


THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 15 


Guatemala came with the reports from the American 
explorer, John L. Stephens, and his companion, the 
English artist, Francis Catherwood. Between 1839 
and 1842 these two men visited and, with admirable 
exactitude, described ‘forty-four ruined cities or 
places in which remains or vestiges of ancient popu- 
lations were found.”’ 

Nearly all our present information has been gained 
since Stephens’s time, that is, within the last ninety 
years. And most of our knowledge of the glyphs 
has been hammered out within the past thirty years 
by arduous study of the inscriptions on monuments 
and of the texts of three Maya books, or ‘‘codices,”’ 
as the experts call them, which fortunately escaped 
. the Spanish zeal for destroying what were considered 
“‘writings of the devil.” 

No Rosetta Stone has been discovered to make the 
decipherment easier by permitting comparison of the 
hieroglyphs with another language. Nor is it likely 
that such an aid to interpretation will be found, 
although it is quite possible that more codices will 
be discovered. 

Hunting for ruined cities in the unmapped jungle 
is somewhat like hunting for a needle in a haystack. 
The chances of success are increased because of the 
fact that the country was more thickly populated 
than most countries of our modern world. The 


16 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


civilization of the Mayas was built up on an abundant 
reservoir of man power supported by the fertile 
vegetable growth of the tropics. . Our admiration for 
them must increase when we reflect that their mag- 
nificent temples of worship were probably made with 
man power alone, man power wielding tools of stone. 

Within a hundred years or so after the birth of 
Christ the Mayas were building these splendid stone 
cities in territory now included in the southern parts 
of the Mexican States of Chiapas and Tabasco, and 
in Guatemala and along the western edge of Hon- 
duras. In this region are the lofty temples and broad 
plazas of Copan, Tikal and Palenque. This period 
is comparable to the classic period in Greek art, and 
is noted for the best sculpture the Mayas ever pro- 
duced. We call it their “‘Age of Sculpture.” The 
last date which has been found in this area corre- 
sponds to 630 A.D. 

In other words, these magnificent cities of what 
scientists call the “‘First Empire” of the Mayas 
were abandoned about the beginning of our seventh 
century. The cause of their abandonment has been 
the source of many an archeological controversy. 

By the year 1000 A.D., however, the Mayas had 
found themselves again. Then there began their 
renaissance, their ‘‘second blooming.” This oc- 
curred in Yucatan and Quintana Roo. Here ap- 


S. Clara 
Prog OAS _ = 


mn 


OF MEXICO 
7=—Lagartos 
Lyne Ly 
Ss. #2) Et SS 


Or. Gann an 


Or. Kidder, 192 Xharet J 
Citas” Pr * Paalmul TA, oD) comme! 


5 (hoy) 
. ‘3 <A md SK }) 
‘oba fi) MP? w/YSt! Tomas 
Ac Wy G 

O b . aZ W y} z 

Excavated ieee ey l farce 
Carnegie Institution yy) \Wey Zi /) ky 

Peto _ChichenItza Project Castilla LCined Puertos 
a de Tulumo 


12 


QUINTANA 9g 


Pachmul 


a 
v 
ky 
& 


s Ay 
0 gape 


{ CHINCHORRO 


GENERAL DRAFTING CO. INC.. WY. 


The heavy black line shows the route of the Mason-Spinden Expedition and 
the black stars mark the new archeological sites which the Expedition discovered. 


ai 


THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA 17 


peared new cities of stone, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, 
Mayapan, Labna, Zayil, and dozens of others. In 
this period perhaps the painting and certainly the 
sculpture of the Mayas never reached quite the 
high level of that earlier blooming in the southern 
area, but the architecture was the finest the race 
ever produced. Hence this age is called the ‘‘Age 
of Architecture.’’ It is also called the ‘‘Period of 
the League of Mayapan”’ as distinguished from that 
earlier ‘‘First Empire.’”’ We do not know much 
about the details of Maya political structure. But 
apparently government followed the opposite course 
of that it has taken in our United States and tended 
to become less and less centralized. The Mayas 
were ruled by Priest-Kings, for religion and govern- 
ment went hand in hand. And toward the last days 
of the Mayas individual sacerdotal monarchs took 
more and more independence upon themselves. Each 
city-state was nearly sufficient unto itself. But the 
religion and the racial stock and the language of 
the various groups was the same and they main- 
tained alliances for the purpose of common defence. 
For a very rough illustration of the relations between 
these city-states of Yucatan we may look at the 
famous Hanseatic League of European cities, al- 
though the ties between the old Central American 
towns were much closer. 


18 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


The leaders in this era of flourishing city-states 
were the great cities of Uxmal, Chichen Itza and 
Mayapan. Jealousy between the last two ushered 
in the civil wars which hastened the end of this 
Maya renaissance. Some commentators imply that a 
woman was the cause of the war which Hunnac Ceel, 
monarch of Mayapan, waged upon Chac Xib Chac, 
ruler of the ‘City of the Itzas at the Mouth of the 
Well’”—as Chichen Itza means in English. At any 
rate Mayapan sought the aid of the Toltecs, who 
were just giving way to the Aztecs in the highlands 
around where now stands Mexico City. 

The calling in of outside mercenaries was a step 
fatal to Maya civilization. ‘The Toltecs found that 
even though their culture had had its day they could 
fight better than the Mayas, and they soon over-ran 
northern Yucatan as the Romans over-ran Greece. 

Things seem to have gone from bad to worse 
until many Maya nobles banded together about the 
middle of the fifteenth century and sacked Maya- 
pan, whose ruler apparently had been oppressing 
other cities with the aid of his Toltec allies. When 
the Spaniards came in 1517 they found a weakened 
and degenerate people occupying the seats of former 
splendor. 

I am reciting Maya history with a positiveness 
perhaps not entirely warranted, yet there can be 


THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA Ig 


little doubt that civil dissensions were a contribut- 
ing cause of the abrupt breakdown of civilization in 
Yucatan. But why is it that more traditions have 
not been left, that more details of the debacle are 
not known? The Spaniards are strangely silent about 
the Maya hieroglyphs. Did they come in contact 
with no natives who could read them? 

The puzzle implicit in these and similar questions, 
the enigma presented by the swift and silent disap- 
pearance of the flower of Maya culture, has convinced 
scientists that civil war was not the only and perhaps 
not the chief cause of the vanishing of that great 
early American civilization. Other causes suggested, 
by men whose word carries weight, are climatic, 
change in Central America, exhaustion of the soil 
and the outbreak of epidemics, especially Yellow 
Fever. Spinden believes that this disease which 
the ancients called ‘‘Black Vomit’’ may have been 
a large factor both in the abandonment of the cities 
of the ‘‘First Empire” and in the final breakdown 
of civilization in Northern Yucatan. 

Life in ancient Yucatan was a matter of delicate 
articulation as in our own city civilization of today. 
Suppose, for example, shortage of food and water 
made it necessary to evacuate New York almost over 
night and set up a new city in a rural district. A 
million persons might conceivably die in the trans- 


20 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


fer. And if meanwhile yellow fever or smallpox 
broke out... 

To me the final, abrupt collapse of this great civil- 
ization just before the Spaniards arrived is the most 
fascinating part of the whole Maya riddle. Isn’t 
the mystery which enshrouds the ruins more poig- 
nant than it would be if they were ten times older? 

Spinden and I have chosen the eastern part of the 
Yucatan Peninsula as the field for this expedition 
partly because it is one of the least known sections 
of the whole Maya area, but partly, too, because 
it was here that Europeans first came to grips with 
the broken remnants of the first families of America. 

It is said that when one sense is crippled the others 
become sharper. Perhaps it is due to their inability 
to make much of the hieroglyphs that scientists 
have been able to put together so much information 
about the Mayas from the evidence of sculpture and 
architecture. The discovery of a ruined city may 
mean much more to us than a mere count of so many 
buildings added to the list of those already known. 
It may give us important information about the 
nature of the people who built it, the sort of lives 
they led, the activities which interested them. And 
if we can only get some light on the connection be- 
tween the modern natives and the dead builders . . 
find some survival of an ancient custom... . 


THE FIRST FAMILIES OF AMERICA a1 


Just now a modern Indian is crossing our bow in 
a fishing boat propelled by a gasoline engine. It 
seems a far cry from this Indian with his noisy, 
smelly motor to the brown skinned warriors who 
stood up against Spanish cannon with flint tipped 
spears and shields of tortoiseshell! 


CHAPTER II 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 


It’s a great hour, it’s a grand hour 
When your anchor slams down, 
When the old yawl lets her wings fall 
And you land on the town. 


It’s a great hour, it’s a grand hour 
But the best hour I know, 

Is the morning, grayly dawning, 
When you make sail—and go! 


Not even the premonitory gray of dawn was in 
the sky, however, when I was wakened by the rattle 
of the windlass as the Albert pulled up her left bower. 

Buttoning my sweater and lighting a corn cob I 
reached the deck to hear Spinden moan through 
three blankets and an overcoat: 

‘“‘T’ve got a longitudinal crease in my foot!” 

“Is that why you kept it in my face all night?” 
came from under the greasy tarpaulin with which 
Whiting had reinforced his swathings. 

The port engine coughed, sputtered, began to flare 
through the exhaust like a machine gun. Into the 


eastern sky crept hints of lemon, violet and apricot. 
ERPS 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 23 


The trade was rising with the sun—a favorable 
wind, thank God! Jib, staysail and foresail were 
helping the motor. The starboard engine was idle 
—there were certain shallow spots ahead which the 
Captain did not want to reach till the tide had lifted 
a little. 

‘“‘Breakfas’ ready,’’ announced one of the two 
moon-faced San Blas Indian boys in our crew, which 
numbers six, beside pilot and Captain. 

Our dining table is the engine room top. Spinden, 
Whiting and McClurg crouched on it like Turkish 
tailors, half encircling the food which the cook put 
on the table all at once from bananas to bacou. 
Griscom balanced on the bulge of a water barrel 
abaft the engine room. I sat on an upturned pail 
just in front of the wheel. These are our permanent 
seats, said the steward, ebony Jake who has been 
with Captain George Gough since the Albert was 
built. 

Spinden and McClurg, each 46, are the senior 
members of the expedition. They have ten years 
on me and I shade Griscom a scant twelve-month. . 
Whiting, at 21, is the kid of the party, as he is 
frequently reminded by Spinden. The latter, who 
talks even more than I (as I see it) and has twice 
as much to say, is the leader in the free-for-all, 
Donnybrook Fair of badinage, personal animadver- 


24 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


sion and ‘‘ragging’’ which has kept up with no 
intermission except for sleep since we assembled at 
New Orleans. This worried me a bit at first, I was 
afraid some soft spots might be found and seeds of 
trouble sown. That no soft spots seem to exist 
speaks well for the crowd. 

To find a ruined city is not the only objective of 
the Mason-Spinden expedition. Most of the coun- 
try ahead of us has never been visited by an orni- 
thologist and we have good reason to hope Griscom’s 
work will be very useful to science. With wise 
modesty he refrains from predicting that he will 
discover a new species, although there is a splendid 
chance that he will. He was lent to the expedition 
by the American Museum of Natural History chiefly 
to study the fauna of Cozumel Island and the ad- 
jacent mainland, for previous scientists to visit 
Cozumel have made the astonishing report that on 
that small island are several kinds of birds not re- 
corded anywhere else in the world—not even on the 
Mexican mainland some twelve miles away! 

Ruined cities and rare birds: a good program, but 
we have yet another aim, namely, general explora- 
tion with the emphasis on coastal and hydrographic 
observation. The Navy Department has asked Mc- 
Clurg (a full-fledged Commander in the Naval Re- 
serve) to check up the positions of certain lights and 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 25 


other landmarks of value to mariners which seem 
to be of a migratory species to judge by conflicting 
reports of their whereabouts which reach the men 
who make charts. 

Cozumel Island is on the route of steamers from 
Galveston, New Orleans and Mobile to Central 
America, yet our Government’s only chart of Cozu- 
mel is based on a British survey made no more 
recently than 1831. Opposite a large lagoon near 
the south end of the island a legend on the chart 
reads: ‘‘There is a channel into this lagoon but it 
was not seen by Captain Owen.’ Which is better 
than no information to a mariner in a storm, but 
it might well be expanded. On the same chart the 
heads of Ascension and Espiritu Santo Bays are 
drawn in the fascinating broken lines which indicate 
doubt—unexplored territory. We hope to investi- 
gate the uncharted parts of at least one of these 
great bays. The very meagre soundings shown for 
both these bodies of water were made by a British 
war vessel in 1839. Yet Ascension Bay was described 
by its Spanish discoverer as large enough to hold the 
navies of the world. ‘Terminating in Allen Point at 
the northern side of Ascension Bay is a long sliver 
of land which our Navy Chart shows as a peninsula. 
But we were told by a fisherman in Belize it is an 
island. 


26 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


From Labrador to Tierra del Fuego it would not be 
easy to find a piece of coast so little known to white 
men as this. Yet the coastal: places I have just 
mentioned are only from 150 to 250 miles distant 
from the western tip of Cuba. 

In the whole Maya territory it would be hard to 
find a piece of land so nearly terra incognita to the 
archeologist as the narrow strip of hinterland be- 
tween the coast of the Mexican Territory of Quin- 
tana Roo (formerly part of the State of Yucatan) 
and a parallel line drawn through the end of the 
Yucatan railroad system at Valladolid, about seven- 
ty-five miles away. 

We are as certain that there are in this strip undis- 
covered birds and important Maya ruins unknown 
to archeologists as men can be certain of things 
they have not seen. 

Breakfast was interrupted by a check to the 
schooner’s progress so sudden that the coffee pot 
waltzed into Whiting’s lap. 

Our Skipper dropped the fish line he was unsnarl- 
ing and jabbed at the bottom with a fifteen foot 
pole which takes the place of a sounding lead on this 
‘“‘good sea and mud boat,’’ as McClurg calls her. 

‘‘Start da starboard engine, Nelson,’’ he yelled to 
the young engineer below, ‘‘an’ go ahead on both. 
Hey, Maichee an’ Jawn, get up da main.” 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 27 


The obstacle impeding our advance was a bar 
which blocked most of a narrow channel between 
two pieces of Hicks’ Key. Engrossed with the re- 
partee of the breakfast table the helmsman had not 
noticed that the wind had been blowing us far to 
loo’ard—indeed with the centerboard raised on ac- 
count of the shallows the old schooner had been slid- 
ing sideways like a dishpan. 

In raising the mainsail and going ahead on both 
engines the Captain thought to plough through the 
obstacle. But the bar stood its ground, or mud. 
The only result of Gough’s manoeuvre was to imbed 
the schooner so deeply that it seemed she might 
stay there forever. 

““There’s only about a foot rise of tide here, and 
it’s more than half up already,’’ McClurg observed 
pleasantly. ‘“‘A three or four inch lift may take us 
off—and it may not, after the way we’ve dug into 
the bar.”’ 

The sails were dropped. Both engines raced full 
speed astern, b:1t the only result was two streams of 
mud whose speed away from us emphasized the 
. solid and stationary nature of our position. 

Seeing the -futility of this effort the Captain 
launched the crazy half-dory we call Delirium Tre- 
mens and carried an anchor off to port of the Albert’s 
bow. Hauling on the cable the men tried to turn the 


28 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


schooner’s head, while the port engine backed and 
the starboard motor went ahead to help the turning 
operation. But the vessel wouldn’t budge her nose, 
for with all the drums of gasoline and kerosene that 
had been stowed forward she was down by the head 
and the bar had got a good grip on her bow. 

We now tried shifting cargo. Meanwhile one of 
the two San Blas boys—who look like twins but are 
not related—dove for the anchor, which seemed to 
have acquired the schooner’s intention of cleaving 
to this bottom indefinitely. Each time the Indian 
came up he was a splendid sight with his nude mus- 
cular body glistening in the sun. After several futile 
attempts he loosened the anchor from the clinging 
marl, and the dory carried the big iron hook out 
astern of the schooner. 

The dusky manpower of our crew was applied to 
the cable again while both motors heaved hard 
astern. Sulphurous oaths in English, Spanish and 
San Blas came from the sweating crew, and choking 
blue fumes poured out of the engine room. 

‘She moves,’ yelled the Skipper, “‘yah, she’s 
‘ movin’!”’ 

He pointed to a nine-foot oar jabbed perpendicu- 
larly into the bottom with its shaft brushing the 
counter of the Albert. 

‘‘An inch a minute,” agreed Whiting. It was 


MIIY ‘§ ‘H 2U} Sem }e0g pnur pur vas poos y 


~ 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 29 


hardly much faster at first, a motion comparable to 
the movement of the minute hand on a Grandfather 
clock. As the encouraged seamen threw every ounce 
they had on the hawser and the fervent incantations 
of Chief Engineer, Nelson, coaxed a little more power 
from the two 24-horse-power Lathrops the Albert’s 
rearward speed increased to six inches a minute, a 
foot a minute. Her stern approached the anchor, 
which had not been carried very far behind us. As 
if resenting her release she rushed at the hook with 
sudden savagery and struck it with her port pro- 
-peliler. 

“‘Stawp her, stawp her,’’ shouted Gough, and the 
punishment of the anchor was stopped. Everyone 
thought the port propeller must be a ruin. But 
the naked San Blas went overboard to look and came 
up with a dripping grin. Just a little nick in one 
blade, ‘‘no bigger’n a sardine could nibble,” explained 
Gough. He has a miraculous way of understanding 
the jargon of these San Blas Indians, who are his 
pets among the crew. They are built like short, 
stocky men of 25, but neither is yet 16. The Captain 
calles them Maichee indiscriminately, which adds to 
our difficulty in distinguishing them. It seems that 
matchee means ‘‘boy’’ or something like that in San 
Blas, and that they really have proper names, one 
being. Joe and the other John. 


30 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


The nick in the propeller blade was not serious, 
but the port engine had inhaled mud to the capacity 
of its cylinders, and the nick was the final insult. 
The engine quit. 

The starboard one was stopped by order in five 
minutes when Griscom sighted a fishhawk’s nest on 
the key we were passing. He, Whiting, Spinden 
and I let ourselves very gingerly into Delirium 
Tremens. With cumbersome nine-foot oars deli- 
cately handled we rowed this damnably unbalanced 
craft into the squdgy grass which fringed the man- 
grove bog that was the key. Floundering through 
the morass three of us made still pictures of the nest 
and movies of the parent birds in the air, while 
Spinden from the rear snapshotted our flounderings. 

Griscom was elated. This was a new ‘‘farthest 
south’’ for nesting fishhawks. ‘This was the second 
time our ornithologist had scored, for he had already 
seen a herring gull in Belize harbor—a ‘‘farthest 
south”’ record for that species. 

We are delighted with our schooner, which I 
chartered at Belize, Capital of British Honduras, 
through the good offices of Spinden’s friends in the 
United Fruit Company. She is comfortable and 
the most strongly built vessel of her size I have ever 
seen. 

Certainly, though, she is no beauty with her 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 31 


patched sails, and with the two frame structures 
which loom up on her stern with all the grace of the 
little building which dogs the rear of every good, old- 
fashioned New England farmhouse. That is just 
what one of them is. The other is the galley. 

The Albert has been used as a combination pas- 
senger and cargo carrier, like many small schooners 
and big yawls in Central America where the sun 
has not yet set on the day of the old style, freelance 
trading vessel. She has just had an interesting oper- 
ation by which a forty-seven-foot yawl became a 
sixty-five-foot schooner, mainly through the simple 
process of having a chunk inserted in her middle. 
One result of her visit to the ship hospital is that she 
is clean—so clean that she is a moving contrast 
to the fears we had of what she might be. 

The great centerboard box divides the after part 
of the hold, and in the rear of these compartments, 
piled against the bulkhead between us and the 
engines, are dozens of crates and boxes of provisions. 
A steep companionway enters the starboard hold, 
and a ladder gives other egress to the deck through 
a hatch over the wide, open part of the hold just 
forward of the centerboard box. Forward of this 
again, under the lower, foremost deck which would 
be the fo’c’s’le head if she had a fo’c’s’le are stowed 
her chains, spare anchors and cable, two hundred 


32 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


pounds of ham and bacon, the axes, pickaxe and 
shovel of our archeological outfit, and four fifty- 
gallon drums of fuel. The remaining six hundred 
gallons is stored on deck in cases. At the most 
there is five feet ten inches of headroom, not enough 
for Spinden and me. 

Hinged against the Alberi’s sides and suspended 
from her deck beams above by galvanized chains 
are six planks, six swinging bunks, three on a side. 
Spinden and McClurg have taken port bunks, the 
junior trio berths to starboard. The berths are short 
and Whiting, Griscom and I cannot occupy our 
beds simultaneously without the feet of at least one 
man being on another’s face. But Griscom, Whit- 
ing and Spinden announce that to escape the heat 
and the odor of fuel here they prefer to sleep on 
deck in the folding cots they have brought for the 
bush. Which suits McClurg and me perfectly. 

Already we are all keen about George Gough. 
Only one request of ours has he unfulfilled. That 
was to get the permission of the British authorities 
to insert the letter M between the H and S of the 
Albert’s name. Never sailed schooner on romantic 
quest with more prosaic title. “‘H.S. Albert!” It 
sounds like the name of a coal barge. However, 
with the ridiculous frame shacks on the poop, and 
the roof with rolled up carriage curtains raised on 


JUSTIS 910M WOSe|T puv uaspurds yJoq Udy JUoUIOUI oIvI VW 


Ne 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 2% 


uprights over the engine house the good vessel re- 
sembles an East River floating home for tuberculous 
children. 

But her name bothers me less now that I know the 
explanation. It seems that Gough is only one of 
three owners of the little ship. Like his partners 
he is a parent, and the schooner is named for a child 
of each of them—Harold Stella Albert, I think it is. 

George F. Bevans is the name of our old negro 
pilot. He goes forward to peer at the shoals and 
relay back directions through the two shouting San 
Blas Indians to the Skipper, who takes the wheel. 
Now the light glints on a long, tanned face—humor 
and initiative in the strong mouth and straight eyes 
—the face of a man in whom leadership is so in- 
stinctive that he never feels the responsibilities of 
command. 

It is late afternoon. With the wind nearly abeam 
we are hot. It must be a stifling day in the bush, 
out of the breeze. McClurg and I have finished 
opening and sorting the stores, and we have all 
rigged racks for guns and towels beneath our bunks, 
and nailed boxes there to hold toilet articles, to- 
bacco and books. Griscom has overhauled his shin- 
ing cutlery for skinning birds and his arsenic and 
cornmeal for curing the skins. His belongings and 
Whiting’s are well arranged, but McClurg’s are put 


34 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


out in the apple pie order of the Navy. What a 
contrast to the careless aspect of my quarters! As 
for Spinden’s dunnage, a great mixed mass of papers, 
books, cigar boxes, photographic material, hunting 
knives, candy jars, boots, medicine bottles, ink bot- 
tles, blankets, and disordered clothing buries not 
only his bunk—which he does not sleep in—but 
the spare bunk between his and McClurg’s as well. 
He has made several attempts to reduce this moun- 
tainous chaos to an orderly plain, but while the 
engines are running the poor fellow cannot stay 
below two minutes before he begins to turn 
green. 

Spinden and McClurg—already firm friends, are 
a delicious contrast. When he can forget the internal 
torment created even by this slight roll of the 
schooner the archzologist puts off the manner of.a 
pathetic child lost in the dark for a sudden smile 
of winsome friendliness. His fund of information is 
amazingly vast, ranging from thermo-dynamics to 
bar-room ballads. McClurg talks little, but always 
to the point. His charm is in his crisp dependability, 
his way of putting his head a little on one side with 
a quick smile. He says frankly he hasn’t the slight- 
est interest in ruined temples or old frescoes. He 
vows he will never go far ashore and his curiosity 
about the land we plan to visit is confined to reefs 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 35 


and islands. He hopes we will travel fast, in order 
that he may see as much of the coast as possible 
before his business calls him home in about a month. 
McClurg’s ruling passion is the sea and ships, two 
things which are poison to Spinden. The latter 
sharpens his machete and longs to endure the bugs 
and thorns of the bush for a glimpse of the faces of 
old gods. Sharing the pet enthusiasm of each of 
these men to a lesser degree, I find the conflict of 
hobbies vastly entertaining. Spinden and McClurg 
have given up trying to win the other’s interest 
to ruined cities and ships, respectively, and have 
found neutral ground in conversations on astronomy 
and cooking, subjects on which knowledge is essen- 
tial both to archzologists and navigators. 

The water in the starboard butt is tinctured with 
tar. The flavor in the port barrel is gasoline. Whit- 
ing has solved the thirst problem for today at least 
by adding to a bucket of the tarry fluid generous 
quantities of sugar, limejuice and rum. 

The dull masts of our schooner are great gold 
pencils in the generous sun. From her maintop the 
five-starred flag of Honduras snaps and crackles in 
the breeze—a fair wind to the coasts of the unknown. 
Now, at last, I really believe we are going up the 
buccaneer coast of Yucatan in a schooner, looking 
for an old, ruined city of the Mayas. 


36 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


We are bound first to Payo Obispo, capital of 
Quintana Roo, to get permission from the Mexican 
Governor to explore his Territory. Thereafter our 
plan is to use the schooner as a houseboat, a base 
from which to sally into the interior. The coastal 
jungle which we want to explore is more easily 
reached by water than by land. We are urged to 
hasten by a rumor that the British explorer, Dr. 
Thomas Gann, whom we left in Belize yesterday, 
January 16, 1926, is going to Cozumel Island or 
Progreso, Yucatan, to get a boat to bring him south- 
ward along the same piece of coast which we are 
aiming to reach by northerly sailing. 

‘‘Stawp her,” yells the Skipper. 

Anchor chain rattles. ‘The schooner’s head comes 
up into the trade wind, warm, strong, steady as a 
fine friendship. <A light gleams out astern. ‘‘Payo 
Obispo,’ says the Captain. But we cannot land 
tonight, the Customs House has closed. 

Since the sun rose over Saint George Key we 
have nearly crossed Chetumal Bay, which separates 
British Honduras from Mexico. When Montejo, 
conqueror of Yucatan, came up here in 1529 his 
caravel must have been of very slight draft. In 
large areas the wide bay is of insufficient depth to 
drown a Maya Indian, and the Mayas are short. 
As McClurg has just said: 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 37 


““There’s a lot of water here, but it’s spread on 
thin.”’ 

The Assistant Engineer, the Pilot and the Cook 
are already playing cards by a lantern under the 
canopy over the engine room. Spinden, Griscom 
and Whiting stumble over each other and the fold- 
ing cots they are opening in the brief spaces between 
water barrels and fuel cases. 

McClurg has already turned in below. IT follow 
the beam of my flashlight down there, kick off 
sneakers and thrust a leg up to my swinging berth. 
Grasping the chains which hold it I pull myself up 
like a man coming over a high wall. But I cannot 
sleep. The reality of the dream I am living is too 
sharp to be suspended by physical weariness. 

My body gropes for the hard plank through the 
thin mattress. My hand grips the four by six 
timber overhead. They are real. This is not a 
dream any longer, this schooner off the coast of the 
old Mayas. 

The mind races ahead to places I know by heart 
though I have never seen them. It might pay to 
take a look at that long lagoon back of that thin 
piece of land where Morley, Gann and Held found 
the ruins of Chacmool—that ought to be explored. 
I reach down to a box I have nailed under my berth 
and pull up Hydrographic Office Chart Number 


38 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


1380. An examination with a flashlight confirms 
' the impression that it gave no depths for this lagoon. 
Very shallow, doubtless, but perhaps we could get 
in there with the Delirium Tremens. 

Chart Number 966 comes up, bearing the thumb 
marks and pencillings of three years of study. In 
the northeast corner of Yucatan a cross and a ques- 
tion mark show where it may be possible to find re- 
mains of the great city of Choaca, which seems to 
have impressed greatly the Spaniards who sacked 
it. Further south, roughly opposite the southern 
end of Cozumel Island, I have pencilled in a cross 
and the words: ‘‘Acomal—Lothrop thinks ruins 
here.”’ The exact words of Lothrop in his fascinat- 
ing ‘‘Archzological Study of the East Coast of 
Yucatan’? come to me: ‘‘From these . . . Indians 
of the small village of Acomal . . . we learned of the 
ruins of Xelha, and they also stated that near their 
own village were remains of equal importance.’ 

But someone else may get to these places ahead of 
us; Gann is up to something I am sure. 

And what if all these stories of ruins are fairy 
stories and we should find nothing, not one solitary 
little shrine! I shiver. The leadership of the ex- 
pedition is shared by Spinden, but responsibility for 
complete failure would be mine alone. This trip 
originated in my mind, it was my dream. I sold 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 39 


it, and if we find not a single building, not even one 
solitary little shrine! 

Groping for consolation my mind turns to mem- 
ory of a conference in the Peabody Museum of 
Harvard in November, when Dr. Tozzer of that 
distinguished institution agreed to lend the expedi- 
tion not only the services of Spinden but the Mu- 
seum’s warm moral support. A number of men who 
know the conditions we are likely to meet went over 
our proposed itinerary with us. 

“You are bound to find something worth while,”’ 
Tozzer said at the conclusion of the conference, and 
Morley of the Carnegie Institution and Lothrop of 
the Heye Foundation nodded emphatic assent. ‘‘The 
bush is full of good stuff,’’ declared Morley, who has 
found many ruins by his own efforts and some by 
virtue of his standing offer—widely advertised among 
the Indians of the chicle camps—‘‘veinte cinco pesos 
para un ciudad real” (‘‘twenty-five pesos for a royal 
city”’). 

Well, I’ll offer a hundred pesos, no a hundred 
dollars gold. Two hundred silver pesos, more silver 
than an Indian could carry in his cat-skin pouch. 
A pile of silver, a pyramid. There rises before me a 
typical Maya pyramid, four-sided, with ascending 
terraces and a wide stairway of limestone which 
shines like silver under the moon. And on its top 


40 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


a temple—the grinning stone face of a Maya god 
at each corner, a temple no archeologist has yet 
seen. An old. Maya temple waiting for us to find 
it, silvery in the moonlight. 

Another dawn, this one not so cold. McClurg’s 
test shows the water is virtually fresh. Rid of the 
fear of sharks and barracuda we swim, hurried by the 
fragrance of bacon and coffee. 

Payo Obispo presents a pleasant front of white 
stucco houses with grey or red roofs. There’s a 
glimpse of humbler thatched huts in the rear. We 
anchor near a chicle schooner in a bevy of sloops and 
nondescript launches. 

Governor Candelario Garza is very cordial. He 
has had instructions from Mexico City to treat us 
well, and the only request he denies is that he pose 
for his photograph. He asks to be excused because 
he has not shaved today. Spinden, who is much 
more practical than archeologists are commonly 
supposed to be, delights Governor Garza by arguing 
that the development of a port and railroad in 
Northern Quintana Roo on the track of the steamers 
from New Orleans to Central America would make 
a hustling commercial state of what is now a wilder- 
ness inhabited by a few Indians who exist by hunt- 
ing turkeys and chicle. 

‘“‘I understand you are looking for ruins,’’ says 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 41 


the Governor. “I do not know of any which are 
not known to the world, but I suggest you go and 
talk to Sefior Enriquez. He’s in charge of our 
forestry work in Quintana Roo and has been all 
through the bush. He may be able to help you.” 

We thank the Governor and walk out of his office 
and through wide streets in which the grass is in- 
differently kept down by the bare feet of the in- 
habitants. We walk abreast, we five and tall, hand- 
some young Sefior Fidencio Arguelles, the Governor’s 
Chief Clerk. Burros, pigs, goats, and children trail us. 

Ingeniero Raymundo E. Enriquez is the seventh 
Mexican we have this morning asked: 

‘Do you know of any Maya ruins?”’ 

‘‘T do,”’ he says confidently, ‘‘at Chunyaxché, back 
of Boca de Paila. I was there looking for chicle 
once. You cross the bar at Boca de Paila, cross a 
lagoon, go up a river, and just before you reach a 
lake you'll see one ruin.” 

‘‘What’s it like?’ asks Spinden, suspicious from 
long experience. 

‘“‘It is a one story building with a rather flat roof. 
It has three doors with a decoration over them carved 
in the limestone.”’ 

‘“Yes; are there any others?”’ 

“Yes, you go on, cross this lake to a sort of canal 
connecting with a second lake. On the farther side 


42 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


of that second lake is a chicle camp. Right close 
by are several more ruins.” 

‘‘What are they like?’’ pursues Spinden. 

‘‘T didn’t pay much attention to them, for ruins 
are not my business. But I remember a temple on 
a pyramid like El Castillo at Chichen Itza.”’ 

Spinden’s eyes glisten. ‘‘It sounds like the real 
thing!’ he whispers to me, while Sei#or Enriquez 
reaches for cigarets in his linen coat hanging from 
a nail. 

We pull out our maps. Boca de Paila is shown, 
but there is no indication of the river and the two 
lakes. Confidently Enriquez sketches them in with 
a pencil. 

‘‘Can we get a practico—a pilot?”’ 

“I think you can at Boca de Paila. I think the 
chicleros are still there, or else up at the camp on the 
lake, the place called Chunyaxché. But if I were 
you I’d stop at Ascension Bay first. It’s right on 
your way—and there you won’t fail to get a guide.” 
- We thank him profusely. Will he come on board 
for lunch? Many, many thanks, but he is ‘“‘muy 
occupado’’ today. 

We go out walking on air. This sounds like a real 
clue. And it comes ‘‘the first crack out of the box.” 

It is an everyday occurrence for explorers in this 
country to be told of ruins by chicleros, muleteers 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 43 


and other ramblers of the jungle. Nine times out 
of ten these men cannot take you to the temples 
they have glimpsed months or perhaps years before 
in the roadless bush. In other cases their ruins 
prove to be an old Spanish church or even a stone- 
walled coral, as chicleros and muleteers generally 
have little appreciation of the features which charac- 
terize Maya architecture. However, Sefior Enriquez 
seems so intelligent, and gives such a convincing 
description of what he has seen, that even the 
cautious Spinden is giving free rein to the most 
sanguine hopes. 

No ruins in such a location as Enriquez describes 
are on any archeological map. The fact that En- 
riquez has seen the ruins will not deprive us of the 
right to call ourselves the discoverers of the old City 
of Chunyaxché if we reach it. All the ruined Maya 
cities now on scientific maps were known to natives 
before they were ‘‘discovered”’ by explorers. Amer- 
ica was known to thousands of Indians inhabiting 
it when Columbus arrived, but the civilized world 
calls Columbus ‘‘the discoverer of America.’”’ It is 
the accepted usage to say that an explorer or arche- 
ologist is the ‘‘discoverer”’ of an ancient building if 
he is the first to report it to the modern scientific 
world for study. 

This day drags like the last day of convalescence 


44 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


in a hospital, or the day before a long awaited 
vacation. We itch to make sail and go! Even 
Spinden is yearning for the vibration of the Albert’s 
motors and the gas fumes which will make him sick 
again. 

But we must wait for valuable letters of introduc- 
tion which the Governor has promised to deliver 
this afternoon. 

Arguelles and the Chief Customs Officer come to 
luncheon. Both are pleasant chaps, but I fear we 
are all absentminded hosts. We are full of the 
desire to be alone to think over the great news given 
us by Enriquez, to make our plans and paw over 
our maps for the thousandth time. ‘The strain of 
maintaining a conversation in Spanish makes us 
want to scream. Good chaps that they are, our 
guests probably sense our condition, for they do 
not linger after the cigars. 

‘‘Egad, it’s good to speak English again, fellah!”’ 
exclaims Griscom with a thump on my back. “I 
never took my linguistic responsibilities so hard 
before. Wish I were like Whiting and McClurg 
and couldn’t be expected to do anything but smile 
and murmur ‘Gracias’ ten times a minute!” 

It is six o’clock before the papers are given to 
Spinden and me at the Governor’s office. After 
enthusiastic thanks we run to the dock. 


WE HEAR OF A RUINED CITY 45 


The two ‘‘matchees” give way with a will, Deliri- 
um Tremens caroms along with a bone in her teeth. 

Our impatient crew has set foresail and mainsail 
already. The windlass creaks, the engines bark, 
and the schooner swings off toward Chunyaxché 
and the vindication of a dream. 


CHAPTER III 
RARE BIRDS 


TWENTY hours later—in early afternoon—we were 
anchoring off the fishing village of San Pedro, which 
is on Ambergris Key. This sizable island acknowl- 
edges the rule of British Honduras but is virtually 
the Czardom of two Englishmen who bought it 
and converted it into a vast coconut grove. The 
trees are laid out with the regularity of those in a 
Delaware peach orchard. | 

Spinden rowed to the village with Gough and Pilot 
Bevans, who was to leave us here for his home on 
nearby Key Corker. McClurg, Griscom, Whiting 
and I unboxed one of the outboard motors and 
screwed it to the stern of the Imp, our larger tender. 
We armed ourselves with shotguns and gamegetters. 
The gamegetter is a very useful little implement, 
consisting of a folding, skeleton stock and two bar- 
rels, the larger 41 or 44 caliber and the smaller 22. 
Without the stock it is a pistol. With the stock it 
is either rifle or shotgun, for either ball or shot can 
be used in both barrels. Griscom says he has brought 

46 


RARE BIRDS 47 


down game as heavy as large hawks with a game- 
getter and he expects to bag most of his specimens 
with this tool. 

At McClurg’s second pull on the cord the little 
motor started. He pointed the Imp’s bow for a 
distant promontory beyond the planted area where 
the negro Customs man said we might find birds. 

To eastward the reef was a white ribbon of foam, 
here and there dotted darkly where a coral head 
rose above water. Within this barrier, the ocean 
could do no more than rock us on a gently heaving 
surface so smooth that every detail of the bottom 
was visible through eight or ten feetof water. Little 
black and gold fishes, and larger ones as blue as 
pieces of twilight sky, darted over the creamy 
bottom. 

Three times we vainly tried to land through the 
belt of sea grass which fringed the shore. The 
Imp’s foot of draft was too much. The fourth time 
we poled her into a tiny ditch a native had dug 
through this grass-covered mud bank and pulled 
her out on the beach before his one-roomed hut. 
The man was out fishing, and when his wife saw us 
she ran into the woods with one child in her arms 
and another clinging to her hand. © 

“You see, Griscom, you really ought to shave,”’ 
observed McClurg. 


48 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


“‘Let’s shave Griscom with an oyster shell,’’ sug- 
gested Whiting, picking a shell from the sand. 

Griscom and I sprinted up the narrow beach with 
Whiting and McClurg in pursuit. 

A pelican was soaring down the narrow beach 
toward us. In his effortless flight his wings made 
a perfect cupid’s bow. I took a snap shot, missed 
with the right barrel, then loosed the left as he passed 
overhead. 

McClurg and Whiting did not see him till a great 
projectile came hurtling through a palm with a 
crashing of branches which warned them to jump 
aside just in time. 

“Laugh that off!’’ shouted Griscom, chuckling at 
the dismay with which our pursuers were appreciating 
the bulk and nature of the missile which had missed 
them by inches only. ‘‘Better lay off us hombres. 
Next time we'll drop an eagle on you—or a roc.”’ 

As if really daunted Whiting and McClurg sat 
down beside the carcase of the great pelican, and 
began to smoke to drive away the mosquitoes which 
swarmed out of the low palm scrub. 

Three times my companion and I penetrated this 
strip of bush only to find a swamp within two 
hundred yards of the sea. At last we came upon 
a tiny path which indicated that the marsh had 
fallen back a little. The path led into a clearing 


RARE BIRDS 49 


where a melon patch was guarded by a fence of 
dilapidated fishnet hung on sticks. In a lone tree 
nearby was a platform, possibly used against maraud- 
ing birds and animals by the owner of the melons. 
Griscom followed the northern side of the clearing, 
I the southern. 

I pursued a woodpecker he wanted, but could not 
come within range. The damp sandy soil was 
marked by the feet of peccary, deer and a cat 
smaller than a jaguar—perhaps a kind of ocelot. 
Apparently it had been hunting the peccary, which 
had been hunting the melons. 

' At the end of the clearing water again glistened 
between the dark trunks of mangroves. I heard 
_ three small reports from Griscom’s gamegetter. A 
grayish bird flitted out of a guano palm and the 
twelve gauge roared. Even by number tens the 
bird was too torn to make a good specimen. 

It was a Central American mockingbird, said 
-Griscom, who potted one like it just before we met 
again by the tree with the lookout platform. He 
had also shot the red-headed woodpecker I had lost 
—or its brother. 

‘“‘But here’s something that makes our little shore 
adventure worth while, fellah,’’ exclaimed the or- 
nithologist, reaching carefully into a big pocket of 
his hunting coat. He pulled out an oriole. 


50 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


e 


‘“‘I can’t be sure till I get back to the museum 
and check up, but I’ll bet you a season subscription 
to the opera that,that’s a new subspecies!”’ 

“It’s beautifully shot.”’ There was hardly a 
stain on the smooth golden feathers. ‘‘What’s that 
between its beak?’’ I asked, leaning over the bird. 

‘A dried leaf to keep it from soiling itself.’ He 
snatched the prize back suddenly. ‘‘Good Lord, 
man, don’t drip on it—your face is covered with 
blood.”’ 

“‘So’s your forehead. But no self-respecting mos- 
quito would even prospect around in that beard of 
yours.” 

We walked quickly back to the boat, swinging our 
arms against the swarming insects. We launched 
the boat, walking far out, but still they harried us. 
They could not lower our spirits, however. In his 
first three birds Griscom had got a new species. 
The more he examined the oriole the more confident 
he was of this. | 

Tremendous luck, in a way. Yet it must be re- 
membered that this country is terra nova to ornith- 
ology, and it was almost certain that something new 
was to be found here. The luck is that we have 
found a new species so soon. (With characteristic 
generosity Griscom has named the oriole for me.) 

Our high spirits increased when Spinden reported 


RARE BIRDS 51 


meeting a man in San Pedro who had been told by 
a chiclero of Maya ruins at Chunyaxché. We were 
exulting over this confirmation after supper, when 
Whiting, who had been reading, slid out of his bunk 
with my copy of Gann’s In an Unknown Land. 

Whiting pointed out a passage which I had marked 
a year ago and forgotten. After describing the 
abundant fish and waterfowl he saw at Boca de Paila 
Gann alludes casually to the ‘‘stone-walled ruins of 
. . . dwellings’ of the ancestors of some Chunyan- 
cha Indians whose village he did not visit but who 
he was told lived by the side of a lake connected 
with the sea by ‘‘a little creek navigable only for 
small canoes.” — 

This tallied with the description of the approach 
to Chunyaxché given us at Payo Obispo by Sefior 
Enriquez. If there was truth in the rumor we heard 
that Gann was planning exploration of the territory 
ahead of us he may be even now on his way to 
Cozumel to charter a sloop to take him to Boca de 
Paila. There is good reason for us to hurry on to 
Chunyaxché. | 

However, not a soul aboard the Albert has ever 
visited the dangerous coast between here and Boca 
de Paila. Captain Gough thinks that under these 
circumstances it would be dangerous to run by 
night or even to enter any of these unknown ports 


52 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


except under favorable conditions. This phrase 
means with the sun behind us, or at least overhead. 
When the sun is ahead of a boat her lookout can- 
not see rocks and bars in time to avoid them, says 
Gough. This is the identical advice given us by 
Morley, Lothrop, Ricketson, of the Carnegie In- 
stitution, and John Held, Jr. To fly in the face of 
such a unanimity of expert opinion seems like asking 
for trouble. 

Captain Gough has suggested making two stops 
before Boca de Paila, namely Chinchorro Bank and 
Ascension Bay. I have never heard of an arche- 
ologist visiting Chinchorro Bank, but there is so 
little terra firma there that ruins are unlikely. How- 
ever, when Gough mentioned Chinchorro Bank I 
saw Griscom puff vigorously on his omnipresent 
pipe—a sure sign of suppressed excitement. Ever 
since I first told Griscom about Chinchorro when 
we passed it in the night on the steamer from New 
Orleans to Belize he has wanted to visit this God- 
forsaken obstacle in the track of sailing ships from 
Belize to Europe. He believes that the Big Key 
near the center of the great elliptical ring of reef 
may have land birds very interesting for him to 
study. A good place to look for a new species, he 
thinks, particularly as Cozumel Island, which is 
rather similarly situated, is said to have a number 


RARE BIRDS 53 


of birds not found anywhere else in the world. 
What’s more, he has reminded us that Chinchorro’s 
islets have the characteristic ring formation of the 
typical Pacific Ocean atoll. 

“It would be sport to visit a South Sea Island 
without going to the South Seas—What!”’ he ex- 
claimed. He has a very contagious enthusiasm for 
unusual and desolate places. The wilder and more 
forbidding they are the better he likes them. Mc- 
Clurg is keen for Chinchorro, too. He thinks the 
reefs and currents warrant closer study than they 
have ever had. 

The chart shows good anchorage near both the 
southern and northern ends of the Bank, albeit the 
number of coral heads and shoals indicated on the 
paper is forbidding. But Gough is confident he 
can ‘‘negotiate’”’ the anchorage. Griscom’s success 
with the oriole makes me want to strain a point in 
his favor, and the truth is I am eager to see this 
mass of reefs and atolls myself. So are all of us. 
What is it in every man which makes him leap to 
the invitation to step ashore on soil which perhaps 
no other human being has ever trod? 

Chinchorro! ‘The name cries of lonely cruelty and 
iron desolation. Chinchorro! Page Edgar Allan Poe 
and Robert Louis Stevenson. 

So we are on our way to Chinchorro now. 


54 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Before he left us Bevans imparted minute informa- 
tion about the way to sail through the reef off San 
Pedro, and Gough accomplished the feat in defiance 
of his rule about the sun, which was less than an 
hour high in the east. The Albert put-putted straight 
into its low rays. 

I was sorting ammunition below when the good 
schooner raised up on her tail, like a rearing mare. 
I got to the top of the ladder just in time to be spilled 
into the fore shrouds as the vessel stood on her head. 
About us was a sight for Gods and Poets. 

We were on the bar where great rollers from the 
blue depths beyond all but broke. Not more than 
seventy-five yards from us on each side the end of a 
reef was converting mountains of luscious green into 
geysers of foamy white. I went up the mainmast a 
few feet, after Whiting. From there these two nat- 
ural seawalls stretched off for miles like great 
crouched monsters, thundering in rage at this ter- 
rible buffeting and spewing hissing white water as the 
largest, angriest whalesin the world could never spout. 

Perhaps our schooner stood on her ends for one 
minute, perhaps for two. Spinden moaned that she 
reminded him of some mules he had ridden, ‘‘ You 
think you’re going fast but if you analyze the mo- 
tion it’s mostly up and down.”’ 

The poor fellow had hardly said this when his 


RARE BIRDS 55 


cargo became as uneasy as the Albvert’s. But the 
schooner kept hers. 

We were in blue water now, blue with white 
patches where the wind whipped the caps off the 
heads of the big bold seas. Off to port as far as 
we could see was the thin white thread of reef, then 
beyond the green shallows the thinner white thread 
of beach holding back the press of grass-green palms, 
stunted guano palms and tall twisted coco palms, 
leaning toward the ocean they loved despite the 
droning remonstrance of the trades. 

The Albert was proving herself a good sea boat. 
She took her huge rollers as surely as a duck would 
take them. 

‘God, I wish we would sail,’’ said Whiting. ‘‘It’s 
a crime to waste gas on a day like this.”’ 

Gough put all sail on her. She carried her rags 
as easily as the Hotel Plaza carries its awnings, 
although it was blowing a good four point breeze 
on the Beaufort scale, almost a five I thought. 

Poor Spinden lay lengthwise on deck. At every 
large ninth wave he rolled between the Jmp and the 
wooden cowl over the companionway. 

“Hang it, you'll break our best dinghy,” said 
McClurg, and he wedged the archzologist against 
the Imp with the two boxes which had held the 
Johnson motors. 


56 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


‘‘What’s that vile stuff you’re smoking?” I asked 
Whiting. 

‘‘Griscom’s Edgworth,’’ he answered, ‘“‘have 
some?”’ 

“Tt was my favorite tobacco an hour ago,” I an- 
swered, in the slow sad realization that all was not 
well with me. 

The rest of the morning I sat in various spots on 
the roof of the ‘‘Porch’’ chewing lemons and trying 
to avoid the tobacco smoke which Whiting and Mc- 
Clurg playfully emitted from windward positions. 

Griscom was below skinning birds and fumigating 
himself the while with his great curved tobacco 
burner. After half an hour he rushed top side, with 
his face a sicklier hue than any visage I have ever 
seen outside of a moving picture studio. 

His recovery was remarkable. He avoided the 
technical loss of sea health even while he was green- 
est, and within fifteen minutes he was smoking again. 
But he did no more skinning below decks. And he 
made no objections when Belize John, his apprentice 
in the art, announced he guessed he’d “‘quit skinnin’ 
birds till the table’s steadier.” | 

About noon the Captain began to pinch the Albert 
into the wind, saying he feared we would pass out 
of sight of the low keys which are our destination 
unless he did so. But the result was to make the 


RARE BIRDS 57 


schooner luff so that McClurg and I thought the 
sails were holding her back instead of helping her 
forward. Because the leaches drew a little every 
now and then the skipper stoutly maintained that 
the canvas was helping her. McClurg says he knows 
a lot of fishing schooner captains with the same 
quaint notion, which is not much exaggerated in 
suggesting that the flags on an excursion steamer 
help her on a windward course. However, we did 
not argue the point, for we have discovered that there 
is never very much of the heel and lilt of real sailing 
in the sensations which come when the Albert’s rags 
are drawing. Her sixteen-foot beam is not excep- 
tional for a boat of her other dimensions, but it is 
enough to keep her deck comparatively level in even 
a stiff blow. She is hardly more inclined to capsize 
than a floating drydock. We were not worried 
about her hindering sails, for her engines were being 
aided by a three mile current, which sets into the 
mainland shore south of Chinchorro Bank somewhere 
and sweeps northward all the way to Cape Catoche. 
It is really the beginning of the Gulf Stream. 

We held on the starboard tack. Fearful that we 
might pass Chinchorro the Captain kept going aloft 
to take a squint eastward. His method of ascent 
was admirably facile. Like the crew he is con- 
stantly barefoot while afloat, and his soles are as 


58 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


tough as a Japanese firewalker’s. He seizes the 
wire shroud between the big toe and second toe of 
each pedal extremity, and proceeds aloft hand over 
hand and foot over foot with the ease of a monkey. 

Just a few minutes ago he sighted land. He put 
the Albert about immediately. 

We can see a faint blur of trees from the deck 
already—Cayo Grande, the biggest key of Chin- 
chorro. It is now a few minutes past three. After 
the first thrill of glimpsing our coral island we go 
about sundry tasks below in preparation for landing. 
I return to the deck shortly and am surprised to 
see the whole long shore of the island, with sharp 
details like dead trees and patches of beach grass. 
We are very near the bright green where the shal- 
lows begin. Gough is at the maintop. He has 
said he would take the northern entrance through 
the reef and I wonder why he doesn’t tack. Prob- 
ably he wants to parallel the reef closely, learning 
all he can of it for possible future visits. 

The reef is not breaking, for it is under the lee of 
Big Key. Every second I expect the order to tack, 
yet we hold on toward the dangerous light green. 
This is becoming uncomfortable. I step to the 
companionway. 

‘‘McClurg, come up here quick, will you?”’ (He 
is on deck in three bounds.) ‘‘What the devil is 


RARE BIRDS | 59 


his idea? Do you suppose he knows an opening 
not shown on the chart?”’ 

“If he doesn’t we’re in for it,’’ grins McClurg. 

We are fairly in the green shallows now. It’s ap- 
palling how shallow they are. 

The Captain slides down the mainmast with the 
speed of a fireman, bounds past McClurg and me 
into the foreshrouds, shouting orders as he goes. 

“Put her off, Jawny, off dis way, quick star- 
board! Joe, Matchee, drop dem sails.” 

McClurg and I help the seamen, joined by Whit- 
ing. In the confusion of fluttering canvas and 
stumbling, swearing men I am conscious of a wicked 
coral head, only a foot below water. The clumsy 
schooner is swinging to starboard slowly. Will she 
turn soon enough, I wonder in some cool recess of 
my brain, while all the rest of me pants and perspires 
at a downhaul? 

Yes, she’s missing the coral head to port by four 
feet, grazing a wickeder one to starboard by half 
that distance. 

‘““Stawp one engine,’ bawls Gough. 

Thank God the sails are down. 

One engine stops. ‘‘Half speed on da odda,”’ 
directs our Skipper. Through five or six other voices 
the order reaches the engine room, yet we are still 
rushing at reddish brown coral heads with horrible 


60 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


speed. The white bottom is peppered with them, 
every one near enough the surface to tear out the 
boat’s vitals. 

The miserable curtains on the “‘Porch’’ over the 
engine room are half down, and the Skipper’s traffic 
cop signals from the starboard fore shrouds are in- 
visible to Belize John at the wheel. One of the 
faithful ‘‘Matchees’’ stands below and behind the 
Skipper imitating his gestures. But excited men 
keep running between this Indian and the wheel so 
I crouch just forward of the ‘‘Porch”’ and in turn 
relay the Captain’s signals aft. Since he clings to 
the shrouds with his left hand only his right is free. 
A slow extension of the whole arm means turn to 
starboard slowly, a sharp stab means turn quickly. 
Curving forward sweeps of the arm, like the motor- 
ist’s ‘‘Pass me—I’m going to turn out’’ signal, 
means go to port hard or easy according to the 
degree of agitation of the arm. Never was a vessel 
so conned. 

Griscom is standing by the upturned Imp emit- 
ting great clouds of smoke. McClurg by the fore- 
mast foot looks alternately ahead and up at the 
Skipper, quiet amused amazement on his face, a 
sort of ‘‘I wonder what he’ll do next look.”’ 

The boat twists like a snake, but a slower snake 
now, thank Heaven, 


RARE BIRDS | 6 


“Stawp da engine,” yells Gough, pushing back 
the flat of his hand. He drops to the deck, snatches 
the fifteen foot sounding pole and jabs furiously 
at the bottom. 

A sand bar is the obstacle now. 

‘““Six feet, hold her steady Jawn, fahve an’ a 
half.’”’ We hold our breath as the water shoals to 
five feet—a scant six inches more than we draw. 

“‘If we strike it’s abandon ship I guess,’’ Spinden 
is saying beside me. ‘“‘We never can turn her here, 
the rocks are too close.” 

The pole is probing furiously for a little more 
depth. The schooner has bare steerage way. In 
a moment the wind on our port bow will begin to 
drive her to a lurking ledge, its sharp brown horns 
pricking through the green water thirty feet to star- 
board. 

‘‘Fahve feet, fahve feet,’ jab, jab, jab,—he has 
no breath to repeat that ominous depth. Then a 
triumphant shout: 

‘‘Fahve an’ a half, fahve an’ a half. Six, seven, 
eight—start da engine.”’ 

We're over! We are inside the reef now, and 
menaced by only a scattering of coral heads, each 
visible long before we reach it as the water smoothens 
under the increasing protection of the key. 

One dark patch is straight in our path. I shud- 


62 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


der as we plough for it, full speed on one engine. 
But the Captain’s judgment of depths is uncanny, 
there’s at least eight feet over that ledge. Darker 
patches he recognizes at once as weed, not coral. 
Temperamental his actions may be and nerve-racking 
to us, but he is an artist in his work, no mistake about 
that. 

‘“Stawp her,’’ comes the command again. Fol- 
lowed by, ‘‘Let her go, Matchee.” 

Down goes our sand anchor to a white bottom 
in ten feet of water, matchlessly clear. | 

‘‘Do we have to do that again, Captain?’’ asks 
Spinden as Gough shambles aft. 

‘Why, look who’s here,”’ laughs McClurg. ‘“‘Spin- 
den when did you come back?”’ 

‘“‘One reef is better for the stomach than a crate 
of lemons,”’ I observe. 

“You ought to know, fellah,’’ Griscom chuckles. 
‘‘Lord, I never saw a man look so seedy without 
letting go.” 

Gough seems a little embarrassed. 

‘‘Ah give da order to tack,” he says, “‘but da 
helmsman was too slow. Den ah seen a little chan- 
nel tru da reef an’ decided to fawlah her.”’ 

‘You won’t have to patent your discovery,” re- 
marks McClurg, ‘‘I don’t think there’ll be any great 
rush to use your private entrance to the Bank.”’ 


RARE BIRDS 63 


If the Captain gave the order to tack Belize John 
may not have heard it. It was inaudible to me at 
the foot of the mainmast. Certainly it was obvious 
that we were getting too close to the reef before I 
called McClurg on deck. The chart gives no hint 
of any entrance where we came in. I am beginning 
to suspect the Captain of a fondness for tight places. 

Anyway, here we are, about a mile north of the 
southwest point of the key and not more than a 
quarter-mile from shore, which Griscom is studying 
with his Zeiss field glasses. 

“‘Egad, fellah, this is the place,’’ he exclaims, 
putting up the glasses, ‘‘it’s rotten with life, every 
kind of life except human. I have a hunch there 
are rails here, and they might be a new species. 
There might be a new mangrove warbler, too. Lets 
have a look at it before supper.”’ 

We five Americans get into the Imp and row the 
short distance to shore. ‘Three of the crew follow 
in the other dinghy to get dead wood for the galley 
stove. A hurricane which swept this coast a few 
years ago killed many of the trees on the island. 

We land at the mouth of a little creek. Its sandy 
bottom is scoured by the swift ebb tide which bears 
with it furtive crabs and swift prowling sharks. We 
glimpse a big shallow lagoon beyond the rim of 

solid sand where the trees grow. Stumps and 


64 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


sharks’ fins project from the water. It is a repellant 
place, yet fascinating in its sinister desolation. 

But already we are late for supper. Eager as we 
are for Chunyaxché we decide to stay here tomorrow, 
dedicating the day to a gigantic bird hunt for Gris- 
com’s benefit. 

The hot core of the sun has dropped from the 
flaming west. The trade wind sings in the rigging, 
sings of shoals and souls of bygone sailors. 

Moonlight sifts to the clear cool sea bed of shifting 
sand, the sand which clutches ships, then mercifully 
buries them. Soft and bright is the moon, clean 
and strong the great friendly trade wind. 

We strip off our clothes to feel the wind on our 
bodies. We step to the rail. Here on this wide 
white sea bed are no lurking furtive things like those 
that prowl that foul lagoon. Arms up for a dive, 
bodies balancing— 

What’s that off there—that curving twelve foot 
shadow? a strip of seaweed? But it moves—in a 
stealthy circle—upward, too. Swish, a black tri- 
angular thing glistens and is gone—the ugly back fin. 


ee - — 


CHAPTER IV 
AND COMMON CROCODILES 


Griscom and I were to take the smaller boat to 
the nearest beach and hunt birds all morning. Whit- 
ing and McClurg with gamegetters, Gough and 
Nelson with Griscom’s two sixteen gauge shotguns, 
were to take the larger boat to the farther side of 
the island, exploring the coast and trolling for bar- 
racuda on their way. 

Griscom and I asked Spinden if he would like to 
come with us. He said he thought he would not. 
But just as we were shoving away from the Albert’s 
side he looked down at us and said gently, wist- 
fully. 

“T guess I’ll come.”’ 

A suggestion of something eerie and ominous 
hangs over this desert key. Perhaps our narrow 
escape from the teeth of the reef put us in a mood 
to feel this with particular poignancy. Certainly 
with coral heads and sandbars on all sides the 
mariner must feel uneasy here. But it was more 
than that. The island did not like us. 

65 


66 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


A fringe of sea grass seems to surround the whole 
key out to a distance of fifty feet. And this grows 
from a bank of soft mud near enough the water’s 
surface to stop all but the very shallowest skiff. 


When we stepped overboard to drag our dory through 
it we sank over our boot tops. Struggling on we 


were confronted by the pointed branches of dead 
trees, which here seem always to fall outward in 
protection of the key—a secondary line of defense. 
Almost as many of the standing trees are dead as 
alive, and the sharp gestures of the long ash colored 
limbs only add to the weird feeling the place gives 
one. All the dead trees are inhabited by ants, which 
stung promptly when we let the branches touch us. 

The solid land where the trees grow is a mere 
rim—here thirty yards wide, there perhaps a hun- 
dred. The center of the island seems to be one 
lagoon, or a series of connected lagoons. But the 
word is misleading, here is no deep clear pool over 
sparkling, sandy bottom such as our imaginations 
had visualized. Rather there is a vast forbidding 
swamp, filled with putrefying vegetation, except near 
the little channel from the sea where the tide sweeps 
it clean. The water is too shallow to hide the zig- 
zagging dorsal fins of hunting sharks and the sinister 
ripples where thick bodied crocodiles and alligators 
prowl. 


a 


AND COMMON CROCODILES 67 


Griscom particularly wanted a rail. We heard 
these shy birds calling on every side but could not 
see one. Finally he said to me in desperation: 

““If you see anything slinking through a thicket 
near the water, take a chance and blaze away at it.”’ 

There was not much danger to ourselves in this, 
for there were only two directions to go. We turned 
our backs to each other and began to slip through 
the brush. Spinden followed me. 

The two of us made a crackling such as would 
warn any sensible bird to fly before we were in 
range. There was not room for two to hunt here 
anyway. I threw Spinden an impatient glance, and 
said: 

“I’m going off by myself.” 

He gave me that appealing, wistful look, somehow 
doubly affecting in a man of his size and attainments. 
I managed to drag the Delirium Tremens through 
the clinging mud and rowed north half a mile beyond 
what I judged would be a fair limit to Griscom’s 
beat. JI was sorry I had been impatient with Spin- 
den, felt ashamed of my meanness. 

The guardian mud bank was nearer the land here, 
and green bushes mingled with the dead trees to 
the very water’s edge. I poled with one oar, think- 
ing I might see more game by this quiet skirting 
of the brush than if I landed. 


68 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


A two foot lizard dropped out of a tree and ran 
along a big log. I fired as he reached the shrouded 
end of it. A small yellowish bird flew up at the 
noise and I let go the other barrel. 

I dragged Delirium Tremens over the mud and 
made her fast to a mangrove. 

No sign of Mr. Lizard. But there was the bird, 
a handful of crumpled feathers. I had the guilty 
sensation I had not felt since a barbarous boy’s 
air-rifle potted his last Cedarwaxwing in Tucker’s 
Woods. It was ‘‘for science’’ I did this, I told my- 
self. But I could feel the old savage hunt lust 
warming somewhere within me. 

I pushed through clinging, thorny brush into grass 
growing waist high out of hollow, lumpy soil which 
gave way and dropped me a foot at every other step. 
There was the serpentine hissing sound of scuttling 
crabs. Then more bushes and I came out on a 
whole maze of natural ditches, between banks of 
mud which grass lent a false air of solidity. Some- 
thing moved in the sedge near the water forty feet 
away. I took a chance and blazed away, hoping 
for arail. Pshaw, a little green heron. 

But the report brought crying, squawking life 
from the swamp brooding in the heat. Frightened 
by the first gunshot they had ever heard marsh 
fowl of a dozen kinds betrayed their hiding places. 


AND COMMON CROCODILES 69 


From the invisible farther side of the great bog 
a flock of big whitish birds, their wings set far back 
like ducks, came flapping my way. ‘The exciting 
first glimpse of birds I had never seen before sent 
me down into the veiling grass, groping for number 
fours—‘‘heavy duck load.”” Where had I put them? 
Excited by the hope that here was a new kind of 
water fowl—Chinchorro’s gift to ornithology, I 
jammed a pair of number sixes into the gun just as 
the stunning big birds came into doubtful range 
and began to swing away on silver wings. Perhaps 
there was a chance with the choked left barrel. 

At the shot the marsh broke into pandemonium 
again. The main flock of the mysterious white 
birds winged back to the far side of the marsh. 
But the one I had aimed at turned a flip-flop, caught 
himself, flapped unsteadily a hundred yards up this 
side of the swamp and took a nose dive beyond a 
clump of mangroves. 

I tried to pick out distinguishing features of that 
clump, but it looked just like a dozen other clumps. 
I began a detour to avoid the deeper mud, but with 
a sinking heart realized there was precious little 
chance of finding the lovely mysterious white bird 
which so piqued my curiosity. 

When it seemed I had gone far enough north I 
turned and struck into the thick mangrove. The 


70 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


footing was surprisingly solid here and I could have 
made rapid progress, but went slowly—on the qu 
vive for another shot. Through the dark laced 
growth came the weird guttural of herons—so out 
of proportion to the size of the birds which experi- 
ence told me uttered it that I could well believe the 
sound came from great monsters wallowing in the 
mud. ‘There was another noise—a shrill half-human 
wailing and cackling—which made my skin prickle 
and my hair rise. It suggested women in hysterics, 
or a quarrel of witches. 

It ceased abruptly, with the croaking of herons. 
I had been seen, or heard. Yet J heard no wing 
whir, saw no feather stir. 

The thicket grew lighter. I reached the edge of 
this little table of firm ground and parted branches 
to look out on a wide shallow lagoon. It was ob- 
viously shallow, for stranded logs lay all about. 

I crouched silently. Something splashed. There 
was my white bird struggling feebly in the water, 
two hundred feet away near a bunch of mangroves. 
As I was estimating the thin possibility of my reach- 
ing that thicket by another detour, a long dark snout 
reached out of the water, absorbed my bird, and 
disappeared with hardly a ripple. 

Crocodile! Then I looked at the stranded logs 
_ Closely. It was hard to tell which were logs and 


AND COMMON CROCODILES 71 


which were basking imitations—crocodiles or alliga- 
tors. There are both in this country. 

I went back to the boat, through grass whispering 
with crabs, across sand sibilant with streaking 
lizards. 

As I paddled the skiff along the shore again there 
was a sharp smack in the water behind me. Startled, 
I turned to see only a widening ring on the smooth 
sea. ‘“‘The flip of a shark’s tail did that,’ I told 
' myself. But when it happened a second time and 
a third without my getting a glimpse of the fish 
I began to dislike it. 

I moved into shallower water and paddled very 
gently. Gradually there came over me the un- 
pleasant feeling of being watched. Turning quickly 
I saw the yellow, snake-like head of a big turtle 
pulled under water. I picked up the gun and 
waited for turtle soup. IJ waited in vain. But I 
had hardly exchanged the gun for an oar when that 
same creepy feeling came over me and I turned just 
in time to see the turtle go down. 

This place was getting on my nerves. Life was 
everywhere—but furtive, hostile life. It lurked in 
the lagoons with their harmless-seeming logs, in the 
mangrove clumps guttural with invisible herons and 
shrill with that blood-curdling witch-cackle of I 
knew not what bird or reptile. It rustled in the 


72 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


high grass of sod which gave way under foot and it 
stirred along dead sticks on the open sand where 
loathsome lizards sunned. Now it stalked me and 
mocked me behind the placid face of the sea. 

I was glad to hear Griscom and Spinden hailing 
me up the shore. 

They were covered with mud and sweat and the 
carcasses of mosquitoes, but their bearing was tri- 
umphant. For Griscom could cut another notch 
in the upper barrel of his gamegetter, he had shot 
another bird new to the catalog of ornithology. It 
was a flycatcher of obscure coloration. It was the 
first or second bird he had shot. All morning he 
had looked vainly for another specimen. He says 
it is possible that this species has been reduced to 
the verge of extermination owing to the killing of 
the big trees by the hurricane. It may be that he 
got this lone specimen in the nick of time. 

We found the Albert looking like a hunting camp. 
The Captain, Nelson, Whiting and McClurg had 
burned enough powder for a battle. 

Birds of many sizes, hues and peculiarities of 
shape were arranged in rows on the sloping top of 
the engine room—just forward of that part of it 
which serves as our dinner table. Griscom went 
over them quickly. 

‘‘Good work men,” he said, in his ever cheerful, 


AND COMMON CROCODILES 73 


slightly clipped way of speaking. ‘‘There’s nothing 
new here, but there are several birds which are in- 
teresting because they’re migrants from the United 
States belonging to species which are usually found 
wintering in the Antilles, a long way east of here. 
In other words bird life on this island resembles the 
far off West Indies more than the mainland over 
there. That’s the same peculiarity which they say 
Cozumel has. Your shooting has proved something 
well worth while.”’ 

The mainland is only fourteen or fifteen miles 
west of here. Strange that that narrow strip of 
water should set apart two such distinct types of 
fauna. 

The birds were in the shade and in the breeze, 
but already flies were at them. Spinden sat down 
to lunch with a grimace at the trophies. 

““As the sun gets hotter the birds get rotter,’’ he 
chanted. 

Griscom let out a whoop of delight as he saw the 
soup which the cook set on the table. Twice a 
day we had been eating asparagus soup, and al- 
ready we were sick of it. I scolded Joe this morning 
and told him not to select his soup from the same 
crate each time. The result was that we now had 
before each of us a tin bowl of mock turtle. 

How absurb though, to be eating mock turtle 


74 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


soup in the home of the turtle! Chinchorro means 
turtle net. The men who visited the southeast side 
of the island this morning saw there two or three 
tiny thatched huts, put up by the turtle fishermen 
who were probably the key’s only human visitors 
until we arrived. They come for a few days each 
year. | 

All afternoon Griscom skinned birds. So did 
Belize John, who seems to have a natural bent for 
this art. We others hunted again, but without 
getting another specimen of Griscom’s fly-catcher 
or one of the rails he desired above everything. 

With the tide high McClurg and I took the Delir- 
zum Tremens through the little opening from the sea 
and explored the big lagoon. 

Chinchorro is the sort of place a twelve year old 
boy would adore. This swamp reminds me of the 
big Cape Cod marsh where my brother and I hunted 
blue crabs and yellowlegs from our home-made punt. 
Beyond the expanse of water where the sharks pursue 
their prey and the crocodiles ambush theirs is a 
maze of narrow twisting channels, screened by high 
marsh grass or overhanging mangrove. 

Even though it was the hottest hour of the day 
the place teemed with herons, egrets, and white 
ibis—for such is the mysterious white bird which 
I thought I was discovering this morning, says Gris- 


AND COMMON CROCODILES 75 


com. Itisa lovely, sheening, shy thing. Egyptians 
showed a taste for fine things when they selected 
the ibis to worship. 

McClurg shot a five-foot shark with a ball from 
the larger barrel of his gamegetter. I bagged three 
stilts, well named shore birds of elongated legs and 
black and white plumage. We'll have them for 
breakfast tomorrow with two the Captain shot this 
morning. ‘This fresh meat will be welcome. The 
beef we bought at Payo Obispo provided much 
exercise but little taste or nourishment. Mexicans 
don’t know how to cure beef. 

Our never-idle Skipper and Whiting circumnavi- 
gated the key this afternoon, finding it a “‘circle 
of sameness,’’ says the latter. But they caught two 
barracuda and a weird fish which looks like our 
northern sea-robin. They put Spinden off at the 
southern end of the island and he came back with 
an exciting story of a crocodile slide. This was a 
sloping mud bank which the great lizards were using 
as small boys use the well sung cellar door. 

He wants to take McClurg and me there tomorrow 
morning to try for moving pictures of the saurian 
playground. Griscom is anxious for one more chance 
at a rail, and dawn is the best time for these birds, 
he thinks. So we decide not to leave this anchorage 
until late tomorrow morning. 


76 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


We will risk letting Chunyaxché wait another 
day. For whether or not we find the ruined temples 
we are prayerfully hoping to find Griscom’s work 
has already made the expedition worth while. Two 
new birds in his first two forays into the oe is a 
mark beyond our fondest expectations. 


The alarm clock watch which was Xoch’s parting 
gift buzzed in my ear at half past four. Griscom 
and Whiting and I dressed quickly, drank our coffee 
and rowed softly toward the inlet. Even from the 
schooner the rails could be heard calling. Surely 
we'd get one this time. 

But we did not. The sun came up and burned off 
the miasma which had lent that swamp a deeper 
air of mystery than ever. Still the rails called from 
mangrove islet to mangrove islet—yet not a feather 
to fire at. 

We rowed back to the schooner hot, hungry, 
disgusted and more than ever impressed with the 
haunting, evasive quality of this island. ‘The feel- 
ing we all had was expressed by Whiting with a 
shudder: 

‘‘T felt all the time as if the birds were laughing at 
me.” | 
After breakfast Spinden, McClurg, Griscom and I 
embarked our cameras in the Imp for a crocodile 


AND COMMON CROCODILES 77 


hunt. We left Whiting and the Captain as a com- 
mittee on Ways and Means of catching a fifteen- 
foot shark which hung about the schooner, disdain- 
ing all ordinary baits and possessed of a charm 
against rifle bullets. 

When we rounded the southwestern point of the 
island we encountered a little swell. But the Imp. 
is a very good sea boat, even if we have to step 
gingerly on her bottom, which, in spots is as soft 
as blotting paper. Fortunately her gratings trans- 
fer nearly all the strain to side boards which do 
not have the canvas-like flexibility of two or three 
strips along her shallow keel. 

Indeed, whenever we take to a dinghy it is a 
choice between the risk of sinking and the risk of 
capsizing. We have all decided we prefer the for- 
mer, it is less violent anyway. ‘So we take the Imp 
as often as possible and leave Delirium Tremens to 
the crew. ; 

Moreover, I think there is some appeal to our 
flare for scientific observation in the state of the 
Imp’s bottom. It is in a very interesting state of 
rot indeed. Each time one of the narrow planks 
is bent by an over eager wave we reach down and 
mold it into place like putty. 

Whenever possible we avoid risking contact with 
even the softest beach. ‘Thus we anchored the little 


78 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


boat when Spinden sighted a clump of trees he had 
memorized to mark the crocodile slide—trees of 
dark, shiny, leafage and squat shapes like live oaks. 

We stepped overboard in two feet of water, which 
was a slight obstacle compared with the mud bank 
beyond. At every step we sank to mid thigh. 
Keeping balance would have been hard enough even 
had we not been burdened with guns and cameras. 
Fortunately one of the ubiquitous dead trees had 
fallen far outward. I reached the security of this 
bridge in time to make a movie of the flounderings 
of the others. 

Spinden had carefully marked an approach to the 
crocodile slide which he thought would permit us 
to come within camera range undetected. But when, 
after laborious crawling through grass and brush, 
we parted the last branches, not a saurian was in 
sight. Perhaps they had heard us, or perhaps this 
was only an afternoon playground. 

Intensely disappointed we separated on minor 
hunts. Griscom strolled eastward with an eye to 
birds. Spinden, determined to get some kind of a 
lizard anyway, began shooting the six inch variety 
which infested the dead trees along the beach. He 
said he had a colleague at Harvard who would be 
delighted with a jar of pickled lizards. 

McClurg and I managed to flounder back to the 


AND COMMON CROCODILES 79 


Imp without leaving anything in the mud but holes. 
We reconnoitered eastward a mile or two. Turning 
back we saw Spinden wave from the beach. We 
anchored, while Spinden shouted that Griscom was 
watching some stilts which he wanted me to shoot 
for the larder, as they were out of range of game- 
getters. The mud being worse than ever here I 
encumbered myself only with shotgun and a few 
cartridges. 

After squirming through fifty yards of the most 
tangled brush we had yet seen I found Griscom 
crouching behind a dead tree at the edge of a mud 
flat. He pointed out four stilts, a hundred yards 
east of us and too far from the nearest cover to give 
him any certainty of a kill with his tiny weapon. 
At best he might get one of the birds, with luck I 
might get them all. 

I started to crawl on hands and knees, but had 
to inch along on my stomach like an Indian the last 
ten yards where there was nothing between me and 
the game higher than the trunk of a prostrate tree. 
When I reached this I was barely within range, but 
the long-legged black and white birds were showing 
signs of uneasiness and I dared not try to approach 
nearer. Not till afterwards did I fully realize that 
the alarm of the birds seemed directed beyond them 
rather than in my direction. 


80 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


After waiting two or three seconds to regain a 
little breath and wipe the sweat out of my eyes I 
fired the right barrel. The cartridge was loaded 
with number ten shot and black powder—the only 
explosive that I could get in Belize. For an instant 
I could see nothing. ‘Then through the dark smoke 
I saw one bird flying, and gave him the left barrel. 
He fell on the far side of the little mud flat. I now 
perceived that I had bagged the other three birds 
with my first shot. 

But at the attempt to reach them I sank over my 
hip rubber boots in mud as soft as oatmeal and as 
sticky as flypaper. When I pulled up my left leg 
the straps fastening the boot-top to my belt broke 
and the boot remained in the mud. By the time 
I had dug it out with the branch of a tree I was 
covered with mud from head to foot and perspira- 
tion was making little channels through the bog on 
my face. No use trying to reach the birds this 
way. 

Griscom now pointed out that by making a de- 
tour over reasonably solid ground I could reach a 
chain of mangrove clumps which ran out to within 
twenty feet of where the three bunched birds lay. 
The trunk of a dead palm would make a bridge 
between these small islands of safety. 

I got a piece of dead palm fifteen feet long and 


AND COMMON CROCODILES 81 


holding a smaller stick to balance with crossed it 
like a man going over a tight rope. Pulling in the 
log I threw it ahead over the next morass. When 
I reached the third little island I found the space 
between it and the last one was almost short enough 
to jump. This was unnecessary, however, for in 
the water between these two mangrove clumps lay 
a large log. It looked solid, and a bit of the upper 
side with a knot in it was out of water. I had 
raised my right foot to step down, but had not yet 
let go of the slim mangrove trunk in my left hand, 
when I noticed something queer about that knot. 
The horrifying truth shot through me just in time 
to prevent my stepping on a large crocodile! 

I slipped to the shore side of the mangrove clump 
and in a tense voice called: | 

““Griscom, for God’s sake, throw out my gun 
quick. Crocodile!”’ 

With admirable‘speed and quiet Griscom got my 
shotgun and another palm tree bridge. He passed 
me the gun, butt first. In my trouser pocket were 
two buckshot shells, always carried on shore parties 
for such emergencies. At this range probably num- 
ber tens would have settled Mr. Crocodile. But the 
awful thought of what I had nearly done still 
covered me with goose flesh, and I meant to take 
no more chances. 


82 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


With the loaded and cocked gun pointed ahead of 
me I slipped to the other side of the hummock. 

He had not moved, he did not even flicker his eye 
now as I stared at him. No wonder I had been 
deceived. His resemblance to a rough-barked tree 
trunk stranded in the stagnant puddle was superb. 
It was only a slight liquidity about that eye which 
had saved me; except for this slight moistness it 
was still for all the world a knot hole in the log of 
his body. Now that I studied it however it seemed 
to have a dull but unmistakable expression, an air 
of cold diabolical confidence. Though he is describ- 
ing crodociles in a zoo Llewellyn Powys has caught 
this look exactly when he speaks of, 


6¢ 


. . those curious reptiles who spend their cap- 
tivity immobile as stones; and yet have that in their 
eye suggestive of a sly knowledge that they and their 
kind will have little or no difficulty in outliving the 
terrible régime of men.” 


At a range of five feet I aimed carefully at that 
sly, cold eye, and fired. There was a tremendous 
commotion, I was showered with mud and water. 
Half expecting the monster to come up the bank 
after me I sprang back into the mangrove. As the 
beast’s struggles subsided somewhat I stepped for- 
ward. Catching a glimpse of the lower part of the 


AND COMMON CROCODILES 83 


hideous scaly body I fired at the back just behind a 
point over the rear legs. That finished him. 

My hand must have been shaking when I fired 
the first shot, which had struck well over the target 
of the eye. Through an egg sized hole in his back 
bluish white intestines protruded. 

By vigorous use of our voices and Griscom’s 
police whistle we managed at last to get the attention 
of Spinden, and sent him back to ask McClurg to 
bring the movie cameras from the Imp. Mean- 
while we hauled and rolled the great lizard out of the . 
shade for his photograph. When the cameras came 
we pried apart his jaws with the muzzle of Gris- 
com’s gamegetter and posed him so that his teeth 
would show. Four of them were more than an 
inch long. And the triangular, sharp upright scales 
on his muscular tail were equally gruesome weapons. 

What would he have done if I had stepped on his 
eye? My inability to say may be a loss to science 
but I shall be satisfied never to know. 

Now I recalled that the alarm of the stilts had 
seemed to be directed toward the neighborhood oc- 
cupied by the crocodile rather than toward my 
proximity when I shot. No doubt he had been 
stalking them from one side while I approached from 
the other. Later had he turned his attention to 
stalking me? 


84 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


With the help of the palm logs I gathered in three 
of the shore birds, but could not have reached the 
fourth without a hydroplane. 

Spinden had gathered a dozen big coconuts, and 
what with cameras, guns, birds and coconuts we 
feared we should sink to our necks instead of our 
thighs in returning to the Imp. But Spinden had 
the happy inspiration of tying the birds around my 
neck, as one ties a chicken to a dog to break him 
of roost robbing. ‘Then the archeologist waited till 
we others had crossed the ooziest mud and tossed 
us the coconuts. We caught deftly and he hurled 
with brilliant aim till the last one, which fell short 
and spattered Griscom like a bomb. 

The little motor purred energetically and we 
reached the schooner tired but satisfied—above all 
satisfied to see no more of Cayo Grande. 

The Captain and Whiting had not caught the 
big shark, but at least had shown their contempt 
for him. While he hung sluggishly alongside the 
Albert the Captain had jumped fairly upon his back. 
Never was a shark so startled, said Whiting. How- 
ever, after swimming off one hundred feet he re- 
turned. Whereupon this extraordinary man Gough 
had repeated his audacious performance. This time 
the big fish moved off only fifty feet and was close 
beside the schooner by the time the Captain had 


AND COMMON CROCODILES 85 


scrambled out of the water. Whiting had dissuaded 
the Skipper from a third try at marine bareback 
riding. ‘‘He respects you now,’ Whiting said. 
“Don’t rub it in.” 

Eventually the shark moved away. When we 
returned in the Jmp, Whiting was diving from the 
schooner with no concern for finny marauders. No 
one of the crew knows of an authentic case of a 
shark attacking a man, although tales of mutilations 
by barracuda seem well verified. 

The tide was lower than it had been since we 
arrived here, and two unsuspected coral heads were 
awash only fifty yards from the Albert’s stern. 

We got our anchor, and one engine pushed us 
cautiously northward. Griscom took advantage of 
the smooth water to skin the rest of his birds. He 
has secured an interesting series of mangrove war- 
blers in addition to his new fly-catcher, and is well 
pleased. 

At the northern end of Chinchorro Bank are two 
smaller keys. We planned to anchor east of the 
most northern one. The chart shows enough water 
for us here, but we found a bar had made out, so 
we ran through a break in the reef east of the key 
and reéntered protected water through a reef chan- 
nel to northwest of the island. It was pleasant to 
fly out of smooth water into the boisterous, tumbling 


86 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


blue of ocean again, the wind whistling through our 
hair, and sea birds heightening the excitement of 
the scene, flinging themselves into the brine and 
screaming with anger when they missed their prey. 

During the few minutes that we ran outside the 
reef the two Maitchees caught several barracuda, a 
yellowtail and a rockfish—a stocky creature of per- 
haps twenty pounds, brown with darker dapplings. 
Both these last fish were taken on McClurg’s green 
line, which the crew is beginning to credit with 
‘‘white man’s magic,’’ so does it out-catch the Cap- 
tain’s white line. The San Blas boys are thrown 
into half-delirious joy every time there is a strike. 
They were a sight which I hope the movie camera 
has recorded as they danced on the high swaying 
“porch roof,’’ pulling in fish simultaneously and 
grinning and grimacing in an absolute abandon of 
primitive triumph. ; 

At the north tip of the northernmost of Chinchorro’s 
three keys is the loneliest lighthouse I have ever 
seen. It was not visible from the Big Key. It is 
visited by the Mexican supply boat only once every 
two months, but the light keeper’s assistant com- 
plains bitterly that he has to punch a time clock 
every two hours. I used to think that the job of 
lighthouse keeper would be a perfect one for the 
impecunious chap who would be content with a 


AND COMMON CROCODILES 87 


position which gave him a bare living so long as 
it left him leisure to write poetry or some magnum 
opus on the side, but the time clock has changed all 
that. 

In a last attempt to get a rail Griscom, McClurg 
and I visited the uninhabited twin of this key. We 
saw white egrets and the white young of the little 
blue heron. I shot a catbird, and a flycatcher which 
I could not find, and made a peregrine falcon turn 
a somersault, from which he righted himself out of 
range to my disgust and Griscom’s, who, unknown 
to me, was watching from the farther end of this 
island’s central lagoon. The sweet smell of gun- 
powder is in my nostrils continually, and the small 
boy in me is coming to the top. I bagged a two-foot 
iguana which the crew ate for supper with relish. 
And again a grass-shrouded heron died because it 
might have been a rail. But when we left the island 
the rails still mocked us from secret security. 

We fished going back to the Albert; got four strikes 
and McClurg landed a small barracuda. 

These northern atolls are higher than the Big 
Key, have broader cleaner beaches and less of that 
grim desolation. With fine fishing and some shoot- 
ing they would make a vacation paradise for yachts- 
men with time for sport. But Chinchorro Bank will 
always mean Cayo Grande to us, the sort of vivid 


88 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


half unpleasant place you are glad to have seen but 
glad to have left behind. 

There is madness in the air of Cayo Grande. 
Madness and Caliban cruelty. Two weeks there 
would make a solitary man alunatic. Yet we would 
not have missed it for anything. I am certain we 
shall look back on our forty hours there as on certain 
experiences every man has, which he thinks of al- 
ways with a shudder, and yet which he knows gave 
him something invaluable, if it is no more than an 
appreciation of a snug chair or a warm bed on nights 
when hail bombards the roof and wind shakes the 
rafters. | 

Chinchorro! Years from now a chance glance at a 
map, or some sailor’s casual tale of wreck, and it 
will all live before me again as vividly as John Silver 
throwing his crutch, and the surf thundering on 
Stacpoole’s Kerguellen. I shall see those stranded 
logs where death lurks, hear the whisper of crabs 
through the grass, the slap of a shark’s tail on the 
water, and feel the creepiness of being watched by 
great turtles I cannot see and mocked by some in- 
visible creature of the sinister swamp with horrid 
witch-cackle. 

From Chinchorro may well have come such tales 
of fiendish sea monsters and haunted islands as 
frightened the sailors of Columbus. 


AND COMMON CROCODILES 89 


But now we have other things to think of. At 
the first sign of dawn we shall start for Ascension 
Bay. ‘There we hope to meet our first Indians of 
the tribe which guards the ruins, and much depends 
upon their reception. Their hostility is the chief 
reason why Maya temples exist on this coast still 
unseen by white men. The Indians turned back 
the Allison V. Armour expedition at Tulum and the 
Howe expedition a few years later. More recently 
they surrounded the party of Morley, who thinks 
that his possession of a small phonograph is what 
persuaded them to let him live. 

We have a phonograph and all kinds of records 
from the latest jazz to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. 
We have boxes full of calico, perfume, cigarets, 
hunting knives and Woolworth jewelry. But our 
best asset with the natives is probably the friendship 
of the chicle companies, which have given us creden- 
tials to native chiefs and which have already sent word 
through their agents that we are coming with good- 
will—and pesos. The Governor’s letter is useful 
with Mexicans like this lighthouse keeper but we 
shall hide it when we meet the natives, who in four 
hundred years of contact with men who speak 
Spanish have learned only to hate those tainted 
with the blood of the Conquerors. (Indeed, the 
fact that none of us can speak Spanish like a Mex- 


90 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


ican can be counted as a thing which will help 
us. ) 

We must not bank too heavily even on the good 
offices of the Chicle Development Company, for the 
business alliance between white chicle bosses and 
native chicle gatherers is subject to many vicis- 
situdes. Only three or four months ago there was 
a slight flare-up against the chicle operators. 

In the last analysis we shall have to depend on 
our own tact—and luck. 

Simply by donning our uncomfortable British pith 
helmets when we enter the bush we can at least 
make certain that no sniper will mistake us for 
Mexicans. ‘This is the sole reason we have brought 
this cumbersome type of headgear, which properly 
belongs only to stage explorers. Down here a pith 
helmet means a Britisher, and such slight regard 
as the Indians of Quintana Roo have for foreigners 
is mainly bestowed on subjects of His Majesty, 
King George V. Well—we shall see. 


CHAPTER V 
LOST IN ‘‘DELIRIUM TREMENS”’ 


GouGH did not wait for signs of dawn. He sailed 
at two o’clock while we could see the shining head 
of every nail which held up the blue roof of night. 

The sun came up as a fiery frame for the dark 
silhouette of a graceful barkentine. I chanted: 

“Tf he had seen a barkentine 

Beating off a blowy head, 

Or, all a-sheen, a brigantine, 


Full and free by trade-wind sped, 
How could Fulton have dared to dream of steam?”’ 


‘“‘Or anyone of gasoline,” Spinden tailed onto my 
song. ‘‘’Tis hard enough to roll, I ween, but pois’ning 
me with kerosene is ultimate insult marine.” 

At six o’clock we passed the light on Punta Her- 
rero, at the south side of the entrance to Bahia 
Espiritu Santo. It is ten and a half miles from there 
to Fupar Point, the northern tip of Holy Spirit Bay. 

There was nothing spiritual in the manner of our 
attack on the grape fruit, oatmeal and fried stilts 
which Jake set on the see-sawing house top. Spin- 

gI 


92 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


den confined himself to oatmeal and coffee, some of 
the stomachic rehabilitation which he had found at 
Chinchorro having left him already in the rhyth- 
mical lurch of the trading schooner. But with the 
low coast of Yucatan creeping out on the westward 
blue like a joyous green snake he kept his morale, 
and when McClurg and Griscom tried to shake it 
with insalubrious inquiries too graphically phrased 
he withered them with his penetrating refrain: 

‘‘As the sun gets hotter, the birds get rotter—As 
the sun gets hotter, the birds get rotter.”’ 

At ten o’clock we anchored half a mile south of 
the lighthouse on Allen Point. This guards_the 
northern and deeper entrance to Ascension Bay, the 


mouth of this desolate expanse of water being blocked 


in the middle by a cluster of islands called Culebra 
Keys. 

By an oversight the authorities of Payo Obispo 
had neglected to list this bay as one of the places 
we were entitled to enter en route to Cozumel 
Island. The light keeper insisted courteously but 
firmly that he could not permit us to linger here 
nor to land in the bay’s one ‘‘port.’’ This is Vigia 
Chico, whose distinguishing clump of tall marine 
pines we could just distinguish to westward with the 
most powerful binoculars Zeiss makes. 

In an old brief case—for lack of any more suitable 


LOST IN “DELIRIUM TREMENS” ~ 93 


covering—I had brought ashore a bottle of rum. 
When this was opened the manner of the light keeper 
changed. If we would swear that we had been 
forced into Ascension Bay by engine trouble and 
dire need of water he would see what he could do. 
He would have a paper ready for us to sign by five 
o'clock. Meanwhile in one of the small boats he 
would permit us to visit Vigia Chico, the present 
population of which he put at two. One of these 
was Pedro Moguel, who spoke English fluently, had 
just returned from chicle work at Boca de Paila 
and would know how to guide us to possible ruins 
in that neighborhood if anyone would. (He him- 
self had never heard of any there, he said discourag- 
ingly.) Meanwhile we must leave the ship’s papers 
here. ‘‘Hasta luego” (‘‘See you later’’). 

As we motored back to the Albert McClurg fumed 
at the ways of Mexico. Who ever heard of a light- 
house man having power to seize a ship’s papers, 
particularly when she was virtually a yacht and 
when the light was a big lantern hoisted by a cable 
to the top of a steel upright which looked like a 
bone out of the side of an American skyscraper? 

‘‘Costumbre del pais’’—‘‘Custom of the country,”’ 
Spinden soothed. 

_ “T don’t believe it. He’s just holding us up for 
a little graft.”’ | 


04 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


‘Well, he’s got it,” I pointed out, ‘‘and if he wants 
more we can spare another bottle.” 

McClurg said he thought my ‘“‘alcoholic diplo- 
macy’’ was very undignified. 

“It’s blamed poor policy to sprinkle rum on these 
people,’’ offered Spinden with impressive conviction. 

“You may be right. All I know is that my skin 
has been saved more than once in this country by 
a timely use of agua’diente.”’ | 

‘‘Good for tick-bites, is it?’’ asked Spinden. 
‘“‘Seriously, I see now why your writings are so 
colorful.”’ | 

The discussion continued, developing three vary- 
ing points of view found among Americans in 
Mexico. 

McClurg’s attitude is that of most American Army 
and Navy officers. It is natural and proper in a 
man who has had to look at many foreign countries 
down a six inch gun. 

Spinden, on the other hand, is disinclined to any 
bearing suggestive of an assumption of racial superi- 
ority. Such an assumption may be well founded, 
but it may lead to trouble if cherished too con- 
spicuously by men who have landed not from a 
battleship, but from a homely little schooner armed 
with gamegetters. 

As for my donations of rum, McClurg disapproves 


LOST IN ““DELIRIUM TREMENS’ — 95 


of them because he thinks the rum too good for the 
recipients, Spinden because he thinks it will de- 
moralize them. I am less particular than the Navi- 
gator, less considerate than the Archzologist. 

Of course, we drifted to the threadbare question 
as to whether or not it pays to carry a weapon in 
this sort of country. And if a gun is ‘‘toted’”’ 
should it be worn openly or kept out of sight? 

Although having little facility with a pistol I 
have been persuaded that the open possession of a 
formidable one sometimes saves the wearer from 
attack. And certainly the secret hardness of a tiny 
automatic in a coat pocket enables the naturally 
timid to meet some difficulties with a desirable de- 
gree of assurance. 

McClurg sympathizes mildly with these feelings 
but he seems to regard the question of armament 
as of little importance. It is chiefly a matter of ‘‘cus- 
tom of the country’’—etiquette. The real weapon 
is the eye. 

“More especially the brain and the heart,’ says 
Spinden. ‘“‘If you look for trouble you'll find it. 
If you mind your own business, bear yourself with 
friendly modesty, few men will bother you. I never 
carry a gun. If I meet a bandit—well, a robber 
may not shoot an unarmed man, but when his prey 
is a man with a gun he'll shoot before he robs. 


96 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


And I’ve never seen a bandit who could not out- 
shoot me.”’ 

I’m inclined to think Spinden is right. Wearing 
a bit of hardware on the hip is generally a romantic 
gesture down here, like wearing a carnation in the 
buttonhole at home. <A gesture aimed at the girls. 
And if protection against bandits is the motive the 
man who packs a .45 in Mexico ought to trundle 
a field piece in New York. 

We stopped at the schooner’s side only long enough 
to take aboard a five gallon can of fuel. When we 
pointed the Imp’s bow toward Vigia Chico we were 
turning our backs to the breeze, which was so slow 
now that at our six-mile clip we felt it not at all. 
It soon expired entirely and the water became as 
smooth as polished jade. 

Spinden had brought his colored spectacles, but 
the rest of us squinted like men facing the blast 
of a foundry. We were all soggy with sleep—the 
effect of the early start from Chinchorro. Gough, 
Spinden and I dozed, our heads slumped between. 
our shoulders like three buzzards. Occasionally we 
emerged from coma to dash brine over our heads, 
drink tepid water from the canvas bag or examine 
the shore through marine glasses. Northwest of us 
were several humpy knolls which may be ruined 
buildings covered with trees, but are more prob- 


LOST IN “DELIRIUM TREMENS” 97 


ably sand dunes or rocky little hills. McClurg re- 
peatedly refused to be relieved at the steering lever 
though his hand must have grown numb with its 
vibration. 

Under the conspicuous bunch of pines gaunt houses 
became visible, even with the naked eye. A sort 
of dock ran out to southward of the town. Suddenly 
Spinden woke up and exclaimed: 

“Here comes half the population without his hat.”’ 
Two boys ran out of a building like a warehouse 
and pursued the bareheaded man down the dock. 

‘“Here come the third and fourth quarters,’’ said 
McClurg. 

But the lighthouse keeper had libelled Vigia Chico. 
It now boasts about a dozen human inhabitants of 
both sexes in addition to chickens, dogs and pigs 
in generous proportion. 

The bareheaded man was Pedro Moguel, the 
practico or pilot we wanted. This very affable 
hunter, fisherman, chiclero and parent of locally re- 
nowned hunters, fishermen and chicleros is a middle- 
aged Belize negro who has lived in Mexico a dozen 
years. If what he and his townsmen say is true 
few men know the Turtle Coast northward from 
here to Cape Catoche as he knows it. 

Of course our first eager questions were: about 
Chunyaché—but carefully phrased, for if you in- 


98 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


dicate to a native what answer you hope to get he 
will give it to you, kindness being esteemed above 
truth in this amiable country. Moguel’s informa- 
tion was tremendously reassuring. ‘There are ‘“‘old 
stone buildings” at Chunyaché although he has 
never looked at them closely. His carelessness in 
this seemed criminal to us. But, said he, we ought 
to run up to Santa Cruz de Bravo first and see 
General May and Sefor Julio Martin. General 
May (pronounced My), who is growing rich from 
the chicle trade, is recognized as supreme military 
chief by the Indians of the Chunyaché region and 
it will be an important stroke of diplomacy to earn 
his favor before we meet his savage subjects. Sefior 
Martin (Marteen it’s pronounced of course) is the 
chief chicle buyer in this region, and our letters 
- from the President of the American Chicle Company 
and the General Manager of the Chicle Development 
Company will enlist his good offices—perhaps in 
ways very vital to us, suggests the astute Moguel. 
His advice seems well put, and we have decided to 
accept it, though the prospect of a further delay 
before reaching our coveted ruins is very irritating. 

The rusty tracks of a narrow gauge railroad run 
back from the dock and through what was a boom- 
ing seaport some twenty years ago when General 
Bravo was leading his expensive and vain effort to 


LOST IN ““DELIRIUM TREMENS” — 99 


reconquer the Indians of this territory. The tracks 
end thirty-eight miles inland at the town which is 
Santa Cruz de Bravo on maps of Mexico but Santa 
Cruz de May to the modern Indians and Chan 
Santa Cruz (Big Santa Cruz) to the brown nonegen- 
arians who remember how the Mexican yoke was 
broken in the bloody rebellion of 1848. 

Recently a Fotingo (Ford tractor) has supplanted 
the mules which formerly drew two or three tiny 
cars over this narrow road two or three times a 
week. Vigia Chico is modern—oh yes. Moguel 
telephoned to Sefior Martin and asked him to send 
the tractor down for us at once. It would come 
down this same afternoon, said Moguel, and we 
could go up to Santa Cruz de Bravo in the cool of 
the morning. 

This arranged, the affable African chopped the 
ends off three coconuts and proffered each of us a 
drink. He would go back with us to the schooner, 
he declared, and help fix things with the lighthouse 
keeper. 

Fair enough. But when Moguel stepped aboard 
the Imp he was promptly followed by two other 
natives. Fearful for the delicate bottom of the little 
craft we protested forcefully that we were not licensed 
for passenger service. Moguel, who evidently re- 
garded the two intruders with respect, contended in 


100 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


ingratiating English whispers that they were very 
important men and must not be insulted. 

‘‘They’d better be insulted than drowned,” said 
McClurg, ‘‘the boat won’t hold so many, tell them 
to get out—vamoose.”’ 

A compromise was possible when the younger of 
the two intruders stepped ashore with stolid dignity. 
The other refused to budge. He was a weathered, 
oldish man who said he was in charge of Customs 
here and would have to board the Albert before she 
could move. He didn’t weigh much anyhow. But 
Moguel is a husky citizen and the water was peril- 
ously close to our gunwales as we started. It was 
also seeping through the rotten bottom with ominous 
celerity. Had the wind whipped up suddenly as it 
might well have done the Imp would not have reached 
the Albert. 

We gave ourselves the luxury of allowing Moguel 
and the Collector of Customs to wield coconut shell 
bailers all the way home. 

Now the troublesome lighthouse keeper refused 
to give us back our amended papers until every 
member of our crew had signed the ‘‘Protest’’— 
as Gough kept calling it, that is, the affirmation that 
head winds, engine trouble and failing water had 
forced us to enter Ascension Bay against our wishes. 

Dusk was falling like soft gray snow when at last 


LOST IN ‘‘DELIRIUM TREMENS” tot 


these annoying formalities were concluded. But 
Griscom, Whiting and Nelson had not yet returned 
from an exploration of Culebra Keys undertaken in 
Delirium Tremens. An east wind was freshening, 
and to reach our present anchorage they would have 
to cross a rather tumultuous piece of water invaded 
by the ocean rollers which had slipped between the 
outer reefs which guard the gate of Ascension. 
Therefore, we ran toward the keys to reduce the 
trip for our dory. When we had gone a mile we 
saw her slide out from a little opening between the 
long westernmost key and a small one which hangs 
on its heels. 


Nelson, who was running the Johnson, killed his 
motor too soon and missed his landing by thirty 
feet. As Griscom or Whiting half stood up in the 
dark to get out the oars the crazy boat wabbled, 
lurched sideways into a wave, and took aboard two 
hundred pounds of water. One more blow like that 
and they would have been swimming. But they 
clutched a line which Gough threw and were hauled 
aboard, bringing a dozen large birds, much mud 
and good humor as products of their hunt. The 
birds were boobies, cormorants, curious boat-billed 
herons—which are accurately named, lovely roseate 
spoonbills and reddish egrets with delicate pink- 
gray plumes. 


102 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Griscom believes this is a ‘‘farthest south’’ for 
reddish egrets. Moreover, he thinks his two speci- 
mens of this feathery tribe may prove to belong to 
a new sub-species, as they are unusually pale. He 
has also ventured the opinion that his boat-billed 
heron will prove to be a new variety. Knowing well 
now how conservative his nature and professional 
training make his scientific judgments I am delighted 
to think that we can count four new species to Gris- 
com’s credit already. It is only a week today since 
we sailed from Belize. | 

Several of these big birds were brought down in 
mid flight at ranges he thought were impossible, 
Griscom says. Whiting justly remarks that both 
for the tiny gun and the man behind it this was 
“some shooting.” 

Moguel had the schooner’s wheel as we ran to © 
Vigia. He says that eight feet of water can be 
carried safely to the spot where we anchored— 
about five hundred yards south of the dock. On 
the whole the chart of Ascension Bay is surprisingly 
accurate considering that it is based on soundings 
made in 1839. Where the chart errs it is generally 
on the side of caution; we have found that several 
spots have a little more water than is shown on 
paper. Certainly I should not have supposed that 
an eight-foot vessel could be taken up to within 


WorsY Pal]iq-}e0q JO Sarseds-qns mou v SI }YSII WOIZ pITy) oy} pu 
‘}e189 YSIppoer Jo sorseds-qns mou v ov 4 SII }e SpIiq OM} 9y} ‘Avg UoIsueosy je aUN}JIO} S,WIOISTID 


” 


LOST IN “‘DELIRIUM TREMENS” 103 


less than half a mile of Vigia Chico, for depths of 
only eight and nine feet are indicated a full mile 
offshore. Several of the boats I rejected for this 
expedition on account of their depth could have 
come here, the yawl Jzgress, for instance, and the 
schooner of adventurous George Woodward, Jr., 
which he was crazy to have me take when I was con- 
templating the romantic stunt of sailing all the way 
to Yucatan from New York. 

The buoys which are sprinkled rather generously 
on the chart are today non-existent, and the ‘‘Fish- 
ing Huts (large and conspicuous)’’ which the chart 
offers as a landmark north of Vigia Chico seem to 
have crumbled away. 

Moguel and the Collector of the Port lingered long 
with us after supper, as if loth to return to the weather 
colored board sheds with tin roofs which constitute 
‘watch.”’ 
Being a feminine noun the adjective should agree 
with it. But it just doesn’t, that’s all. We argued 
the point with Moguel and the Collector but couldn’t 
excite them at all. They say the maps are right, 


< 


Vigia Chico. Vigia means ‘“‘lookout” or 


the name has always been Vigia Chico, never Vigia 
Chica, so that’s that. 

In the morning there was no sign of the promised 
tractor. When the Captain and Whiting went 
ashore to inquire about it they conceived the bright 


% 


104 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


idea of hunting up a laundress. The Collector’s 
wife was indicated as such, but she hinted that she 
would not give up her Sunday leisure to wash for 
a barefooted sailor and a roustabout in a flannel 
shirt, soiled khakhi trousers and dirty white sneakers. 

‘‘But these men are scientists,’ said her husband, 
‘‘and very distinguished.”’ 

‘‘T don’t believe it,’’ said the stubborn lady, “I 
saw a scientist once at a fiesta at Vera Cruz. He 
wore boots.”’ 

Just then Spinden happened along with his soiled 
clothes rolled up in a shirt. The good woman 
glanced at his pith helmet and his brown knee boots. 

‘‘Here is a gentleman and a scientist,’ she snapped 
at her husband. ‘‘He is distinguished, very distin- 
guished (muy distinguido). I will wash for him.”’ 

When the Fotingo had not arrived at noon we 
knew there would be no trip to Santa Cruz de Bravo 
that day, for it is customary to allow the train crew 
three or four hours to unload their chicle and rest 
before starting them on their return voyage. This 
delay was maddening to us impatient gringos. But 
after all, perhaps in the United States punctuality is 
over-worshipped. Procrastination is a jolly fat god 
and his ritual is suited to the lands of thesun. Worry- 
ing and fussing fill more tropical graves than malaria. 

Griscom planned to spend the afternoon at the 


i 


LOST IN ““DELIRIUM TREMENS” 105 


great rookeries he had discovered on Culebra Keys 
—or rather, the keys are rookeries, and nothing else. 
McClurg, Whiting and I elected to accompany the 
bird man, leaving Spinden deep in the ramifications 
of Maya astronomy. We were obliged to take the 
detested Delirium Tremens, that dervish of a boat. 
The good old Imp, stable if sponge-like, was being 
used to carry water (no pun intended). Before 
many hours we were to regret this from the bottom 
of our hearts. 

This is how it happened. We laid a course from 
the schooner for the westernmost key, a low blue 
blotch from the schooner’s deck but invisible from 
the dinghy till we had putted along a mile or more. 
Whiting, who steered, was surrounded by too much 
racket to converse, but Griscom excited McClurg 
and me with descriptions of the vastness of the 
rookeries, the tameness of the birds and their enor- 
mous numbers. For more than a mile on the big- 
gest island, the trees were not green, but white— 
with guano, said he. 

When we had been running an hour the big west 
key was clear of the horizon. Within another half 
hour we began to meet bird outposts, chiefly cor- 
morants, which were sunning themselves in the water. 
Griscom put McClurg and me in the bow to give 
our movie cameras full play. 


106 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


A sand bar running toward us from this key was 
black with cormorants. They got up like heavy 
smoke before we could come within good camera 
range. We ran down the north side of the island. 
The branches were bent with the weight of cormor- 
ants arrayed in clusters, like great dark fruit, and 
the more conspicuous for the foliage they had white- 
washed about them. 

Between this key and the next one is an expanse 
of mud and lime sand (the insoluble form of lime). 
This flat stretches seaward some two hundred yards 
north and south from a line between the islands. 
It was now partly uncovered and partly submerged 
at a depth insufficient for Delirtum Tremens. When 
we stepped overboard we promptly sank to our knees 
in the clinging bottom. We floundered a few yards 
to make long range pictures of reddish egrets, which 
have a village on this key although their metropolis 
is on the next islet southeast of it. Being heavier 
than my fellow flounderers and longer-legged I sank 
in farther. Soon the bog pulled off my hip rubber 
boots, quite a feat of strength on the bog’s part, 
for they clung so—being wet inside, that I had just 
tried in vain to get them off by my own efforts. 

Our particular objective was the colony of roseate 
spoonbills, of which Griscom wanted more specimens. 
These birds were beyond the little group of egret 


LOST IN ‘“‘DELIRIUM TREMENS” 107 


nests, that is, they were protected against man by 
the very softest and stickiest piece of the morass. 
Griscom and McClurg were wisely trying to find 
a detour, but I labored straight ahead with Whiting 
following far behind. Suddenly I was in to mid 
thigh, and in spite of my utmost efforts could free 
neither leg. My struggles only made me sink deeper. 
The situation had lost all its humor. Things I 
had read about the relentless purpose of quicksands 
flashed through my mind. By the time that the 
soft ooze had reached my waist I was on the verge 
of losing my nerve. 

Whiting was approaching by frantic effort, but 
of course his progress was slow. I shouted a warn- 
ing tohim. Hecould not help me by getting caught 
himself, and I pointed to where my last visible leg 
hole marked the verge of safe territory. It was just 
out of reach of my hand. I had managed to twist 
about on first stepping into this soft spot, and at 
least I was facing safety. By lying forward I man- 
aged to work my feet up and backward. 

I threw Whiting my two cameras. 

‘‘Pass your gun,’’ he ordered, ‘‘but hold the other 
end.” | 

I went flat on my face extending the gun, though 
I confess it was with many misgivings that I pre- 
sented my whole body to the bog. But the prin- 


108 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


ciple was right— it was the principle of the 
snowshoe. 

Whiting got both hands on the gun butt. I clung 
to the barrels with my right hand and made swim- 
ming motions with my left. 

My companion put on the power gradually. The 
ooze began to lose me, with reluctant, sucking noises. 

‘‘T’m moving—a steady pull now!” 

Slowly gaining speed like a ship gliding down the 
ways I shot into firmer mud, leaving one stocking 
behind me. 

This was too big a price for pictures of birds. I 
reached the Imp with utterances of unbounded ad- 
miration for professional movie camera men. 

We four clustered around the boat, pushing and 
pulling till we reached deeper water, under the shade 
of mangroves east of the bog. A young cormorant, 
apparently unable to fly, dove and swam under 
water faster than we could pursue it. 

We rowed around the key to its southern point, 
where the boat-billed herons were holding a caucus 
in the thick mangrove. McClurg shot one which 
fell where branches interlaced over the dark eerie 
water. Pulling on some branches and severing others 
with our machetes we worked the boat into the 
swamp till McClurg could fish the bird alongside 
with an oar. 


LOST IN ‘““DELIRIUM TREMENS” tog 


There were roseate spoonbills west of the boat- 
billed herons on this same side of the key, but quick- 
sands protected them here as on the side where I 
had left my stocking. However, only a fifty foot 
channel separated this islet from the next one south- 
east of it, which was the site of the main colony of 
reddish egrets. 

These birds are the tamest of the several varieties 
on Culebra Keys. No doubt their fatal blend of 
loveliness and stupidity is one cause of the rarity 
of reddish egrets in a world overrun by man and his 
destructive inventions. Fortunately the reefs and 
shoals and quicksands of Ascension Bay will prob- 
ably protect this colony for many years, irrespective 
of what may happen to reddish egrets in more ac- 
cessible rookeries. 

We paddled our boat within ten yards of mother 
birds, regarding us from their nests with mild surprise. 

In the group was a white bird. Griscom explained 
that the color was a mere idiosyncracy. The bird 
was an albino form of the reddish egret, being in 
size between the two varieties of genuine white 
egrets—those lovely birds which were butchered for 
their plumes until a law barely saved them from 
extermination. The tragedy of the egret is that 
nature has taught it to wear its magnificent gala 
dress only during the nesting season. The death of 


110 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


every mother at the hands of plume hunters means 
the loss of its babies as well. 

When we had taken all the photographs we wanted 
Griscom said he would like to get one more skin. 
Now, although these birds were almost near enough 
to be killed with stones, they were perched over the 
very thickest part of the mangrove. 

‘‘Push around into the little bay and see if we 
can’t pot a straggler where we won't lose him,” 
directed the ornithologist. 

‘“We’ve lost an oar,” exclaimed Whiting. 

‘““We may need it,” I said, ‘“‘pole her back the 
way we came.”’ 

‘“We’ve got an engine,” urged McClurg, ‘‘now 
that we’re here let’s get the bird and then go after 
the oar. It may be way around the island.”’ 

‘‘No, I bet we lost it right over there where you 
shot this heron,’’ said the junior member of the 
expedition. 

‘Yes, let’s look for it now,” said Griscom, ‘‘we 
may need it yet.” 

Just as we had crossed the shoal channel and were 
pushing our bow through the thick branches, I saw 
an egret alighting on an outer branch of the clump 
we had left. If shot there he ought to fall where 
we could easily reach him. 

‘‘Look out, fellows,’’ I cried, and shot, like an 


LOST IN “DELIRIUM TREMENS” 111 


utter fool, with the end of my gun not two feet from 
Griscom’s right ear. 

The poor chap thought that his ear drum had been 
broken. He said he could hear nothing on that side. 
I was plunged into depths of dejection at my criminal 
stupidity, realizing that the ‘‘I-didn’t-know-it-was- 
loaded”’ jackass was only one degree worse than I, 
realizing how futile was my regret. McClurg and 
Whiting cursed me for the idiot I was, then we sat 
there in the gloom for an awful minute, while Gris- 
com held his head in his hands. 

At last he raised his head and said through his 
teeth: 

“‘Let’s get the oar.”’ 

We pushed and pulled a few feet further, and 
McClurg sighted it. Luckily the mangroves had 
prevented the slow current carrying it away. 

Whiting said that the egret which had offered the 
occasion for my asininity to be exercised at Griscom’s 
expense had used its last strength to flop into the 
heart of the maze of bow-legged mangrove roots. 

But Griscom jumped overboard and gave an ex- 
traordinary exhibition of retrieving. After splash- 
ing through water and mud to his waist he climbed 
a mangrove and went from tree to tree like an ape 
till we lost sight of him. To our surprise he returned 
immediately—with the egret. 


112 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


It was now quarter past six—fifteen minutes after 
supper time on the Albert, which was eleven miles 
away. 

I refilled the fuel tank, wrapped the cord around 
the nickel top of the motor, and gave a sharp pull. 
No start. A dozen repetitions, with the spark 
indicator in different positions, gave no livelier re- 
sult. The little float showed the carburator was 
full, everything was in order so far as I could see. 
After struggling vainly for ten minutes I let Whiting 
try it, for he had been running the little outboards 
more than the rest of us. 

I took up the oars, to save what time I could. 
Whiting tried various experiments without improving 
on my failures. 

‘‘How’s your ear, old man?’’ I asked Griscom. 

‘‘Pretty bad, I can’t hear the engine.”’ 

Whiting removed a spark plug and began cleaning 
it with his handkerchief. 

I had rowed perhaps half a mile. The sun had 
set, and already Whiting’s face was dim under his 
wide sombrero. 

Suddenly he uttered a groan, and looked over the 
side. He had dropped the spark plug! 

‘‘Back her,’’ he pleaded, “‘back her quick and 
I'll dive.” 

‘‘No use,’”’ said McClurg cheerfully, ‘‘you haven’t 


LOST IN “DELIRIUM TREMENS” 113 


a chance. We'd just lose precious time. We must 
get clear of this key before the last glimmer has gone.”’ 

We all knew that he meant it would be easy to 
lose our way on this wide eerie bay with a current 
of unknown strength setting toward its unexplored 
head, toward the region of those wavy lines on the 
chart which had fascinated me a hundred times at 
home. Much depended on reaching the end of the 
veiling key and getting a landmark before night 
made that impossible. It was a race between oars 
and darkness. 

“Let me spell you, Mason,” offered Griscom, sit- 
ting on the floor between me and Whiting. 

“Wait till he’s pulled out,” said McClurg, ‘‘we’ll 
need all your muscle before we reach our rice and 
beans.” 

Whiting had been slumped dejectedly in the stern 
since his accident with the spark plug. We were 
all sorry for him, especially I, whose blundering shot 
at that egret had been a thousand times less ex- 
cusable than his error. Now, however, he sat up 
to direct the steering. 

We kept her close to the island, as the shortest 
course. I peeked over my shoulder occasionally, 
and adozen times a vague little promontory dashed 
my hopes that it was the last one. 

But we were clear finally, and just in time. Of 


114 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


course we could not see the schooner or the buildings 
of Vigia Chico. But we did distinguish the faint 
blur of that bunch of high marine palms which make 
the location of Vigia the most conspicuous spot on 
the lonely shores of this bay except for the lighthouse 
on Allen Point, somewhere northeast of us. That 
we could not see at all. But Griscom and I were 
pretty sure of that clump of pines. 

McClurg spotted a few stars to steer by, the most 
conspicuous one behind us. 

‘““Keep her stern under that,” he directed, ‘“‘of 
course it will move, but keep it dead astern now.”’ 

Neglecting what was ahead of us in our attention 
on that star we ran aground. We were on the long 
bar where we had seen the cormorants this afternoon. 
We stepped overboard and dragged the dory into 
deeper water. When I took up the oars again the 
star had disappeared. In a few minutes the clouds 
which were sailing in from the east would cover the 
whole sky. 

I suggested that we go ashore and build a big fire 
on the west point of this key where there was a piece 
of solid ground a few feet above the sea level. The 
men on the schooner might see our fire and come to 
pick us up. If not we could camp here till morning. 
It would be uncomfortable, for though we had water 
we had no food, and the key was cloudy with mos- 


LOST IN “DELIRIUM TREMENS” 115 


quitoes. But it would avoid the risk of spending the 
night in a cranky open boat, no slight risk now that 
the stars were gone and that current pulling us 
toward the remote head of the bay. 

But the others were for pushing on, and pride 
kept me from pressing the point. I did not want 
to seem more timid than my shipmates. Yet I 
confess to a qualm of regret when the utmost effort 
of my eyes could no longer distinguish the dark bulk 
of the island behind us and we had nothing to steer 
by but instinct. 

When I had rowed an hour I changed places with 
Griscom. He crawled forward on the bottom, then 
lay still while I crawled over his back. ‘The others 
crouched low and held their breath. Even so there 
were two horrid lurches which brought our hearts 
into our mouths. 


Now I am enjoying the warmth of my sweater and 
pipe. My feet are under Griscom’s seat, my head 
against Whiting’s knees. 

We shall very likely miss the schooner on one side 
or the other. All agree it would be better to make 
too much allowance for the current and find our- 
selves eventually to northward of the Albert, rather 
than to be carried up to the mysterious head of the 
bay. For if we come out north of the schooner we 


116 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


_ shall be between Vigia Chico and the lighthouse, 
and with any luck by daylight can reach food before 
we are too weak to row. 

The real danger lies in the crankiness of this 
damnable dervish of boats. McClurg mistrusts the 
dory more than any of us because his wider experi- 
ence with dinghies enables him to realize more 
acutely than we just how untrustworthy this one is. 
Each time one of us makes but the slightest sudden 
move—a quick reach for matches in a side pocket, 
Delirium Tremens gives way on that side as if a 
ton of rock had fallen on her gunwale. We throw 
our weight to the other side and she careens that 
way with greater haste—and further. 

The bay is very still now, but it is an unnatural 
stillness. And those clouds look like wind. We all 
know that even a moderate wind would kick up a 
sea in which the survival of this cranky and over- 
loaded coracle would be entirely subject to the whim 
of fate. Rowing would be out of the question, it 
would be a case of all hugging the bottom of the boat 
to reduce her instability as much as we could while 
each man prayed to whatever God he worships. 

This is the chief danger. That each of us knows 
it is not inconsiderable the avoidance of open allusion 
to it testifies eloquently. 

For the first time the expedition is face to face 


LOST IN “DELIRIUM TREMENS” 117 


with peril. And it is a pleasure to watch the 
unanimous reaction. The men joke and they sing, 
but there is nothing forced about it, no nugatory 
strained quality. Each is relishing the spice of in- 
security and offering silent thanks that he has been 
given companions who can share the rare sharp 
taste. It takes no psychologist or sensitive adept 
in human relationships to realize that bonds are 
forming which will endure though we live fifty years 
and separate tonight. No matter what the years 
may do—or petty circumstances of more immediate 
days, between any two of us there will be something— 
call it reciprocal respect or what you like, but a 
stable, foundational something which did not exist 
two hours ago for all our joshing amity together. 
Indeed the upgrowth of hatreds would only throw 
into greater relief this tested thing. ‘‘He’s a pig,” 
one may say (or a cad or what-you-will), ‘‘but that 
night on Ascension Bay he came through with the 
Stuff, he showed he Had It.”’ 

Unmistakably the gentle zephyr of a few minutes 
ago has become a breeze. But overhead it skims 
away one patch of scummy cloud and shows the 
bright pan of the sky. 

“‘Cap’n,’’ Griscom addresses McClurg, ‘‘Cap’n, 
Suh, dis nigger an’ me has done passed dat star you 
give us, could you pick us out anodda, Suh?” 


118 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


‘‘There she is,’’ says McClurg, as the sky breaks 
out behind also. ‘“‘She’s a little south of your stern 
now, but that’s all right, she’s moved a bit and we’ve 
got to allow plenty for this current.” 

The breeze keeps freshening. A sizable wave roll- 
ing by us pulls down the port oar, Griscom misses 
with the starboard one and as he falls back against 
McClurg’s knees Delirium Tremens drops her star- 
board gunwale and takes a two gallon bite out of 
the following wave. I bail with a gourd in one hand 
and a sponge in the other. Griscom recovers him- 
self and rows ig warily. 

‘‘Let me row,” begs Whiting, ae the fifteenth 
time seeking a chance to make amends for that 
spark plug. And for the fifteenth time his proposal 
is voted down, three to one. For the man in the 
stern to change places with the man on the center 
seat would be taking too great a risk with the boat’s 
unstable temperament. 

There is irony in the fact that the water is nowhere 
more than eight to twelve feet deep. Just enough 
to drown. 

‘If she sinks at least two of us can keep above 
water by standing on the other fellows’ shoulders,” 
grins Griscom, pausing in his labors to wipe the 
sweat out of his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘‘We 
might draw lots nowto see who'll be the foundations.”’ 


LOST IN “DELIRIUM TREMENS”’ 119 


““Mason’s the tallest,’ chuckles McClurg, ‘‘we’ll 
unanimously elect him to one of the bottom posi- 
tions.”’ 

“‘T can float for an hour,’ remarks Whiting. 

‘“With me on your chest?’’ asks Griscom 

‘You can hang on to the engine.”’ 

‘Thanks, you can have the anchor.” 


’ 


‘“That leaves us an oar apiece, Mason,”’ observes 
McClurg. ‘“‘Say, finding that oar was what you 
might call luck.”’ 

“Yeh, without it we'd be feeding mosquitoes back 
there on the key now.’ Privately I am half wishing 
we were back on that key. Mosquitoes and croco- 
diles are easier to deal with than this rising sea. 

“‘Spinden knew a man on the Mosquito Coast who 
traded a woman for an oar,’’ relates Griscom. 

‘“‘On Ascension Bay he’d throw in his children for 
good measure’’—Whiting. ) 

“If the Queen of Sheba tried to board us now 
what would you do?”—McClurg. 

“‘I’d give her the oar—the butt of it” —Griscom. 

‘‘T’d give a harem for a spark plug’’—Whiting. 

‘Your hour’s up Griscom, my turn now,’’ says 
McClurg. 

But McClurg has a bad hand, which was operated 
on just before he left Chicago. For this reason we 
have forbidden him to do any rowing. He insists, 


120 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


however, that he can row one oar, which will make 
it easier for me than pulling both of them again. 

‘Which oar did you row at New York Athletic 
Club?”’ 

‘‘Port, which did you row at Yale?”’ 

‘‘Starboard; you see it’s just right, and we'll make 
’ argues the Navigator. 
So wetry the change. For nowit is a race -etween 


much better time that way,’ 


us and the rising wind, as before it was a race be- 
tween us and descending night. 

The gray scummy clouds have covered the whole 
sky again. There is nothing to steer by but the feel 
of the wind. But we are making better time. We 
should have rowed double like this all along. 

McClurg is applying most of his strength through 
the good hand, using the weak one to help guide 
the long sweep—both oars are too long for the nar- 
row boat. In spite of his handicap every time I relax 
vigilance—as when I peer over my shoulder in the 
hope of seeing a light—he pulls the bow around 
against me. It is obvious that he rowed in a Yale 
Varsity eight—even though that was twenty-five 
years ago. 

‘‘Light on the starboard beam,’’ shouts Griscom. 

‘It’s the lighthouse, if you really see it,’’ says the 
Navigator, whose eyes are not so sharp as the orni- 
thologist’s. 


LOST IN “DELIRIUM TREMENS” tai 


“Yes, I see it,’’ I put in, “‘good, that means we’re 
keeping up against the current!”’ 

We row with new energy. Now McClurg sees 
the light, too. But in a few minutes the night 
thickens and we all lose it. However, even that 
glimpse of it is great encouragement. At least, we 
are not being taken sideways up the bay where there 
is no hope of familiar landmarks. Now if we can 
just keep away from those seas which curl angrily 
up to our starboard quarter! Oh, if we had only 
rowed double from the beginning! Such a little 
mistake may make all the difference between our 
eating barracuda tonight and being eaten by them. 

Warily now we row, spurting when a particularly 
threatening wave throws its white crest forward with 
a hiss. 

‘‘What do you suppose they’re doing on the 
schooner?”’ asks Griscom. 

“Studying my library,’ suggests McClurg, who 
brought with him a good deal of reading matter 
which appeals to Gough and the literate part of the 
crew. 

“‘T hope they called for my laundry today,’ re- 
marks Whiting, ‘‘that washerwoman’s husband cast 
a greedy eye on my shirts.”’ 

‘Don’t worry, he’ll take Spinden’s, yours are not 
distinguished enough,’”’ says McClurg. 


122 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


“Or vivid enough,’ adds Griscom, ‘‘he’ll like those 
blues and pinks.” 

The eastern sky is darker than the rest, an omi- 
nous sooty black. 

“They may be looking for us in the Imp,” I sug- 
gest, ‘‘we might fire a gun.” 

‘“‘No harm in trying,” says McClurg. 

‘Where are your cartridges?”’ asks Griscom. 

‘In that musette, under Whiting’s feet.” 

“Right in the water then. Well, we'll test ’em.”’ 

Griscom loads my gun, closes the breach with a 
snap. 

‘“‘Look out how you take that recoil, Delirium 
Tremens won't like it!”’ 

‘““Here’s where I even up and deafen you, fellah.”’ 
Griscom sits up on the floor boards, pointing the gun 
to starboard and slightly ahead to make the full 
flash show in that direction. 

To avoid the concussion as much as possible I 
crane my head over my right shoulder. 

‘Light ahead—on the port bow!’ I yell. 

‘Yes, Sir, Iseeit! Listen fellahs,’’ urges Griscom. 

Faint, but unmistakable, the even whirr of an 
engine reaches our grateful ears. Sounds like the 
other Johnson in the Imp. | 

Forgetting my own advice about taking the recoil 
I snatch the gun from Griscom, hold it at arm’s 


LOST IN “DELIRIUM TREMENS” 123 


length, pull both triggers in quick succession. The 
gun leaps twice against my right hand, the trigger 
guard tearing the skin on the middle finger. 

Delirium Tremens wobbles, ships another gallon 
on Griscom’s shoulder. 

We fall to the oars with a will. 

“‘How far off are they, do you think?” asks 
Whiting. 

*“Bet we reach them in five hundred strokes.” 
I begin to count aloud, then to myself. 

“If it’s the Imp she’d better scoot for the 
schooner,” laughs McClurg, ‘‘look at the east.” 

That black wall of cloud is towering up, covering 
half the ascent of the eastern sky. Perhaps we 
could transfer one man to the Imp with great care. 
That would help a little. 

“It'll be something to have companionship in 
misery, anyway,’ jests the bird man. ‘‘How many 
now, Mason?” 

*“Two hundred and thirty-six, thirty-seven, thirty- 
eight,’”’ I count the sweeps of the long white oar, 
slippery in my tiring grip. 

“Want me to spell you, fellah?”’ 

“Hell, can’t shift now,” sings out McClurg— 
“‘laft her.” 

We lift her, and escape all but the foam of a 
chief of waves. 


124 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


I don’t dare take my eyes off those angry rows 
of white sea horses, running us down as knights 
would ride down a pedestrian. It’s a case of let 
’em come, then jump from the big ones—Izft her. 

But if McClurg and I don’t dare look at the light 
Whiting and Griscom give frequent bulletins, like 
coxswains encouraging their spent crews. 

‘“Dead ahead—that’s right—steady now—they’re 
coming fast.” 

Indeed the noise of that engine grows louder 
every second. Griscom can hear it. Thank 
Heaven, his ear is all right. 

‘‘Hell,”’ sings out Whiting, and his voice has a 
sudden jubilation, “if that’s a Johnson I’m Mus- 
solini. That’s a pair of Lathrops!”’ 

‘‘You’re right, it’s the schooner!” yells Griscom, 
‘“‘see there are two lights now, one lower down. 
She’s a long way off yet, though, or we'd have 
seen that lower light before. Funny how that 
racket carries against the wind.”’ 

‘‘No, she’s not so far, they just put up that lower 
light,’’ argues Whiting. ‘‘Good thing they put that 
first light in the rigging. Somebody used his bean.”’ 

I venture a quick peek over my shoulder. Good 
old Albert!—the whole blot of her shape is plain 
now, and the hump on her stern—those absurd 
shacks. | 


LOST IN “DELIRIUM TREMENS” 125 


‘Watch it now, Mason, wait till that big one’s 
past, then pull like hell,’’ coaches McClurg. The 
big one sweeps under our lifted stern with the last 
hiss of the cheated sea. I pull like hell while 
McClurg eases. Our bow comes around, we run 
into the chop now—safely. 

We row with diminishing force as we range under 
the schooner’s lee. Eager hands grasp our gun- 
wale, others pull us aboard while one matchee se- 
cures our painter and the other leaps into Delirium 
Tremens to pass out our dunnage. 

Spinden used his bean. Gough said we were all 
right, and the Captain had no light showing except 
the lantern on the engine room top. Spinden in- 
sisted on hoisting it, then insisted on running out 
to look for us. 

We praise his headwork and pour out a round 
of rum, stripping off our steaming clothes in the 
cosy hold. We praise it with renewed fervor as 
the east looses its threat at last. 

Outside the wind is a battle. 

McClurg looks through a porthole. 

“What price Delirium Tremens in that mess!”’ 
He chuckles—the unexcitable one. 

The schooner is anchoring as we sit down to hot 
tomato soup, fried barracuda, canned beef stew, 
yams, rice, beans, cherry tarts and coffee. The 


* 


126 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


curtains laced down the sides of the ‘‘Porch”’ flap 
and whirr in the wind. 

‘‘No wonder da engine wouldn’t run,”’ says Gough, 
who has been looking over our Johnson. ‘‘Spark 
plug made no difference—she wouldn’t a run any- 
how.”’ 

“Why?” 


‘“‘Da fuel tank is full 0’ kerosene!”’ 


mS 


CHAPTER VI 
A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 


AT breakfast time the tractor had still not come. 
I felt like throwing up the trip to Santa Cruz de 
Bravo in spite of the importance to the expedition 
of gaining the good graces of General May. 

Spinden urged us to be patient. He dwelt upon 
the folly of expecting Latin-Americans to hurry, 
illustrating his point with an anecdote of a Costa 
Rican editor, who said: 

“The Americans have a funny saying—‘Time is 
money’!”’ 

When we turned in last night it was only after 
a long hunt for a lizard, which Spinden captured 
alive on Chinchorro Bank. The creature escaped 
from its box yesterday and has been terrorizing 
the schooner ever since. The cook found it in the 
flour barrel yesterday afternoon, and when McClurg 
went to his bunk last night the lizard was perched 
on his pillow. A lantern, two bottles of beer and 

127 


128 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


the crystal of my watch were broken in the pursuit, 
which was vain. Spinden is temporarily very un- 
popular. 

The sailors seem really afraid of the lizard, al- 
though the reptile is not over a foot long. 

At half past nine we saw the long awaited diminu- 
tive train enter the town at a pace a boy could walk. 
We immediately went ashore. Because they seemed 
to be sorry for having kept us waiting the four 
attractive young Mexicans who run the train un- 
loaded their bales of chicle with all speed and were 
ready to start in an hour. 

The chicle is the sap of the Zapote tree, hardened 
after a boiling process similar to that by which maple 
sugar is made from maple sap. These bales are 
blocks of chicle wrapped in sacking to make a 
package about eighteen inches deep, eighteen inches 
wide and three feet long. Chicle is an essential 
element in the composition of chewing gum, and has 
no other commercial use. 

The locomotive of the Vigia Chico—Santa Cruz 
de Bravo Limited is a car looking not unlike a 
station wagon with a top over only the driver’s 
seat, the rest of the vehicle being a mere flat car. 
Behind it were two other wheeled contraptions, 
one the sort of small flat car the Mexicans call a 
plataforma, the other a similar body provided with 


A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 129 


a carriage top, side curtains and three or four cross 
benches for passengers. 

By hand the “‘locomotive’’ was pushed to a small 
turn table where it was turned, also by hand. 

One of the cars fell off the track; we two pas- 
sengers assisted the train crew to lift it back 
bodily. 

Two of the train crew crowded onto the seat 
beside the driver. One of them had a gun, not for 
bandits but for wild turkeys. Yucatan is some- 
times called ‘‘The land of the Turkey and the 
Deer.”” The beautiful bronzy ocellated turkey is 
perhaps the prize item in the peninsula’s fauna. 

Formerly so many delays in the railroad service 
were caused by the pursuit of game on the part of 
the train crew that an ordinance was issued for- 
bidding the engineer to stop the train for any 
chachalacca, curassow, peccary, deer or even the 
coveted turkey. It is whispered, however, that 
laxity in the observance of the rule is winked at. 
Moreover, it is possible for the letter of the law to 
be observed in many cases without the loss of game 
which God has put in the way of the sporting con- 
ductor or brakeman. When the brakeman shoots 
a bird he jumps off the engine, which slows down, 
allowing him to catch the rear car as it trails by. 
The law has not been broken, for the train has not 


130 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


been stopped. Nevertheless, the turkey goes into 
the pot. 

When we*had run half a mile and were in the 
midst of the swamp which is behind the town it 
was discovered that a can of gasoline had been for- 
gotten. ‘The train backed a few feet, stopped, and 
a boy continued the quest of the needed fuel on foot. 
The psychology of this is beyond me. The train 
could have backed into town and returned in a 
quarter of the time it took the youth to fetch the 
gasoline. But in Mexico one soon ceases to won- 
der about such matters. Spinden and I profited - 
by the example of the engineer and employed the 
interlude to eat oranges and drink coconut milk. 

Soon we were out of the marsh and gradually 
rising over the typical flat limestone plain of Yuca- 
tan, covered with scrubby trees. A space barely 
wide enough for the passage of the train had been 
kept clear, and we were constantly lowering our 
heads to avoid branches which switched into the 
car in spite of its carriage top. 

Perhaps two hundred Indians inhabit the less 
crumbled of the once pretentious stone buildings of 
Santa Cruz de Bravo, which boasted a population 
of 4,000 in 1902 when General Bravo was making 
it his headquarters in his unsuccessful atten to 
reconquer the Indians of Quintana Roo. 


A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 131 


Sewor Julio Martin, a handsome and affable 
chicle broker, and his hospitable family offered us 
a room where Spinden put up his folding cot and 
I swung my hammock of sisal fiber. 

These simple operations were impeded by the 
unsought attentions of several intoxicated Indians 
who had followed us from the train, which was left 
for the night on the rails in front of Sef#ior Martin’s 
house. For we learned at once that we could not 
hope to see General May and return to Vigia this 
same day. General May was “‘sick’’—in short he 
was in the condition of the aforesaid Indians who 
followed us into our room—which was in a separate 
building opposite the stucco dwelling of the Martins. 

Indeed, Santa Cruz de Bravo is the drunkenest 
town it has ever been my lot to stay sober in. The 
retention of our sobriety, by the way, was something 
of a feat, for as we walked about the ruined town to 
see the sights and record them on film we were 
followed by a steadily growing army of inebriates— 
each man waving a bottle of vicious, colorless ‘‘rum”’ 
in our faces and urging—nay almost insisting, that 
we partake. Many of them grew angry when we 
declined, and as all wore the conventional machete— 
an implement both of agriculture and murder much 
like a pirate’s cutlas—our situation rapidly became 
uncomfortable. We fled to our room, locked our- 


132 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


selves in, and remained there until Sefior Martin’s 
charming and cultivated Uncle came to announce 
supper. For although we had brought food the 
Martins insisted on having us at their board—and 
right well did we fare there. In fact I was ashamed 
of the sustained ferocity of my attack on the delicious 
viands the ladies of the family put before us men— 
for according to native custom the women did not 
eat till the favored males had finished. Mexican 
cooking has no such extensive range as the culinary 
art of the French, for instance. But within that 
range Mexican cooking at its best is second to none 
in the world except the Gallic. 

In the morning General May was able to see us. 
We were received in a warehouse half full of the 
chicle which May’s Indians had gathered for their 
chief to sell to Sefor Martin—who ships it to the 
great gum manufacturers of the United States. 
The price which Martin and other brokers elsewhere 
in May’s territory pay for the solidified sap is divided 
between the General and his Indians. No doubt 
the chief keeps a substantial share, for he is said to 
be enormously rich according to native standards, 
and chicle is virtually his only source of revenue, 

Francisco May is a well set up chap of perhaps 
five feet six, which is rather above the average 
for the men of his nation. He is well into the mid- 


OABI OP ZNID vULS Jo SeARJA WaYUNIp oy} Jo auIOS 


é 


A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 133 


dle years of life, but does not look it. He was in 
the formal dress of his people, which is a suit of 
white cotton, with bell-mouthed trousers and a frill 
on each breast. Except for these embellishments 
his suit looked like simple white pyjamas. His 
+head and feet were bare. 

He sat on a bale of chicle, accepted our English 
cigarets without any word but with a friendly bow. 
When we had seated ourselves on other bales Spin- 
den put questions in Spanish to Sefor Martin who 
translated into Maya, the only language the General 
will permit to be used to him, although it is said he 
has a fair understanding of the language of the 
Mexicans whom he regards as usurpers. 

He said he felt gratitude for our flattering interest 
in the temples of his ancestors. He had no objection 
to our studying any we might find, but he could 
not suggest the whereabouts of any for us to visit 
except those at Tulum, Chichen Itza and other well 
known sites. 

When Spinden asked how he had won the rank 
of General he said: 

“I was born a General. The title passes from 
father to oldest son in my family. But I do not 
care for war. I prefer the chicle business. It is 
better for the stomach.”’ 

In short, the interview was interesting but not 


134 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


very helpful to our designs. May at least offered 
no obstacle to our proposed exploration, but neither 
did he offer to aid us with information about ruins 
unknown to archeologists which are known to him 
and his people. There can be no doubt that such 
ruins exist. When we asked about Chunyaxché 
May merely grunted, and seemed bored. : 

Sefior Martin thinks that the General would be 
glad to help us on his own part but that he fears the 
disapproval of a large element in his nation. ‘This 
element, knowing less of the outer world than May 
and certainly profiting less than he by commercial 
contact with it, clings stubbornly to the prejudice 
against all outsiders which was born under Spanish 
tyranny. When General Bravo’s army of occupa- 
tion was driven out by Indian guerrillas a treaty was 
wisely made by Mexico in which the virtual in- 
dependence of the Indians was recognized in return 
for a promise by their Chief that he would keep the 
peace, maintain order, and pay certain Federal taxes. 

At lunch Sefior Martin recalled that there were 
one or two mounds a few kilometers down the rail- 
road which he believed to be of Maya origin. At 
his urging we abandoned the idea of returning to 
the schooner immediately and set off in the train 
to look for these mounds under the guidance of the 
same youthful railroad men. Three of them eat 


A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 135 


at Sefor Martin’s table and are his relatives—but 
the exact relationships of his large family I have 
not yet mastered. 

At Kilometer Fifty—that is six kilometers toward 
Vigia Chico from Santa Cruz—there was in General 
Bravo’s time a town called Laguna. Here, on the 
edge of a pretty pond, we were shown a mound 
which may well have been of Indian origin, although 
probably later built over by Spaniards or Mexicans. 
Without excavation we could learn nothing of value 
from it as there is no building standing on it to- 
day. By the terms of our agreement with the Mexi- 
can Government we are subjected to Mexico’s blanket 
prohibition of excavation by foreign archzologists. 
(There has been an exception to this rule made in 
favor of the Carnegie Institution’s work in the ruins 
of Chichen Itza.) Hence we did not linger at this 
mound when one of the trainmen said he knew a 
chiclero living down the tracks who had told him 
of seeing “a stone building in the bush.” 

We found the chiclero boiling chicle in a great 
black pot. On the subject of the building he had 
seen he was most unsatisfactory. First he denied 
seeing it. Then, being cornered, he admitted he 
had told the young Mexican with us—named Pinto 
—of having seen it but said that he could not pos- 
sibly find it again. A little later he said we could 


136 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


easily find it if we would go ‘‘in there’’—pointing 
vaguely south, ‘‘about two kilometers.” 

The truth was that he did not want to leave his 
chicle. Finally he said that a neighbor who was 
weaving a new palm leaf roof on his shack across the 
railroad tracks would show us the way. But this 
Indian was just as obdurate as the first. I offered 
each of them five pesos to lead us, but neither would 
budge. From their description of the building it 
was one of those small, low shrines built in the last 
period of Maya sway, that is roughly between 1200 
A.D. and the coming of the Spaniards. We were not 
missing much in all probability, and yet we should 
have liked to have seen it. For it would have been a 
start—‘‘first blood,” archzologically speaking. 

It is possible that in the refusal of these Indians 
to guide us we had encountered some taboo, some 
form of the anti-foreign prejudice which has made 
the bush of Quintana Roo inaccessible to archex- 
ologists until recently. Or it may be that their un- 
willingness to help us was mere individual stubborn- 
ness—the result of temperament, laziness, call what 
you will the mood in which Mexican Indians will 
often refuse to raise a finger to pick up a few pesos 
within reach. 

In disappointment we returned to Santa Cruz, to 
be besieged on the streets by the usual press of 


A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 137 


Indians intent on pouring down their throats as 
quickly as possible the proceeds of a season of 
chicle-bleeding. Sefor Martin happened along and 
rescued us. His method of handling these earnest 
proffers of vile white rum without hurting the feel- 
ings of the Indians or becoming as intoxicated as 
they was to touch each bottle quickly to his lips, 
which he then wiped on his hand with a ‘‘gracias”’ 
as profound as if he had drunk deeply. This seemed 
to satisfy the bibulous ones. But they were so dirty, 
and so many of them had sore lips, that we could 
not drive ourselves even to this diplomatic subter- 
fuge. All we could do was to press English cigarets 
on them—which they accepted greedily—and plead 
acute stomach trouble at each hospitable flourish 
of their bottles, meanwhile edging fearfully toward 
our own quarters. Once near enough for a dash we 
fled incontinently and bolted the door behind 
us. 

Again the hospitable Martins insisted that they 
would feel insulted if we cooked our own supper 
on the little raised stone fireplace in our room. So 
while Sefiora Martin was performing the last rites 
preliminary to the offering of another excellent 
meal we sipped Sefior Martin’s good Habanera and 
listened to dramatic stories of his difficulties on 
coming to Santa Cruz ten years ago, when his life 


138 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


was often not worth a centavo to the Indians— 
which is perhaps why they spared him. 

As the Fotingo was to leave for Vigia Chico 
before sunrise we did not linger with the Martins 
after one round of Don Julio’s excellent Vera Cruz 
‘‘Reina Britannicas’’ had been smoked. 

I was in my hammock and Spinden was about to 
blow out our candle when a thin, weak-looking 
Indian with a wide, loose-lipped mouth entered our 
room without knocking. 

Were we interested in ‘‘ruinas de los antiguos’’? 
(ruins of the ancient people) he asked. 

We certainly were (we had been asking every 
likely looking native we had met in Santa Cruz if 
he knew of ruins, till now without result). 

‘“Well, I am Florencio Camera, mule driver. In 
the season of chicle I work for Don Julio. I know 
where there are some ruins. If you like I can show 
you.” 

Thus far he had been speaking Spanish. Now 
he remarked, ‘‘I speaks Eengleesh,’’ and with ob- 
vious pride in his erudition attempted to continue 
the conversation in our language. But his English 
was as poor as my Spanish, or worse, if possible. 
We did not get any further for a minute or two, or 
until Spinden had persuaded him to return to 
Spanish. 


A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 139 


Then, to condense to thirty words a half hour’s 
conversation, Camera said that he knew of ruins at 
Tabi, on the trail from Santa Cruz to Peto, which is 
the end of the railroad in Yucatan and some hundred 
and twenty-five miles northwest of General May’s 
capital. He also knew of ruins at Taro. But that 
was further away, almost to Peto, and the ruins at 
Tabi were the better ones anyway. He had seen 
two temples at Tabi, but thought there were more. 

It is a common experience for explorers to be 
misled by arrieros and chicleros, whose knowledge of 
architecture is often insufficient to enable them to 
distinguish between a Maya building and walls which 
mark the early occupation of the Spaniards. But 
Camera seemed to know what he was talking about. 
Of his own accord he said these temples were on 
pyramids. That would certainly be Maya. We 
showed him pictures of temples in Lothrop’s book 
about Tulum. Yes, the Tabi buildings were just 
like those, said the mule driver. 

Excited by the conviction that here was a lead 
well worth following we dressed, and took Camera 
across the street to the Martin house. Don Julio 
was finishing a last cigar. 

It developed that there were hardly enough mules 
available for the trip to Tabi, which Camera had 
said would take nine days of our time, going, com- 


140 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


ing and allowing two or three days for clearing the 
ruins of brush and studying them. The arriero is 
still engaged in bringing chicle out of the bush for 
Don Julio. But in two or three weeks the last, 
straggling chiclero will be out of the bush, plenty of 
mules will be idle, and Camera will be at our service 
for three and a half pesos a day and about a similar 
amount for each mule. 

Spinden and I did some quick figuring. We think 
we can do Chunyaxché, put Griscom ashore at 
Cozumel Island for his work and return to Santa 
Cruz in about three weeks. So we have engaged 
Camera and six mules to be ready for us on February 
20. And I have promised the arriero one hundred 
pesos as a bonus if Tabi turns out to be all that he 
says it is, and further bonuses in proportion for 
such other ruins as he may get wind of before our 
return, and be able then to show us. 

The husky young engineer of the Ford train called 
us before there was any sign of light in the east. 
By the time we had finished pretty Sefiora Martin’s 
sugared buns and delicious chocolate the eastern 
sky was lemon and saffron and the rising trade was 
stirring the leaves of the heavily laden orange trees. 

Although the brakeman did get one futile shot 
at a majestic turkey, this time the progress of the 
train was delayed more by domesticated animals 


A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN tat 


than by creatures of the wild. As we left the gray 
ruined walls of dismal, dilapidated Santa Cruz a 
calf chose to run ahead of the Fotingo. Before we 
could overtake it both calf and train had entered 
the long narrow corridor through the bush outside 
“‘civilization.’’ It was too late for the calf to leap 
aside from the tracks. The thick, thorny bush 
prevented that. Yet the creature would not, could 
not maintain a speed adequate to the train schedule. 
There was nothing to do but catch it and deposit it 
carefully behind us with its head pointed for Santa 
Cruz. But the calf had no desire to be caught. 
And if it could not run as fast as the Fotingo it 
could run faster than any of the train crew. So we 
had a succession of ridiculous, vain pursuits. The 
Fotingo would rush up to the calf’s heels and stop, 
while conductor and brakemen would leap off to 
pursue the young lady cow on foot. Winded after 
two or three hundred yards, they would signal for 
the train to pick them up, whereupon the absurd 
spectacle would be repeated. 

After four or five miles of this the beast’s strength 
began to fail. With the conductor’s hand all but 
on its tail the animal leaped sideways into a natural 
pit in the limestone beside the tracks—a perpendic- 
ular drop of at least eight feet. 

We thought the brute had certainly broken a 


? 


142 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


leg, but not at all. It was a prisoner in the pit, 
however, and was promptly caught, dragged up to 
the tracks and headed for home. 

Later, at Central, a ‘‘town”’ consisting of one tin 
roofed shed formerly used as a barracks by soldiers 
of General Bravo, the dog belonging to an Indian 
family sharing the passengers’ car with us jumped off 
the train and refused to return. Of course, it would 
not do to proceed without the dog, which was the 
dear pet of the two children in this family. Half 
an hour dragged out before the creature was caught. 

Four kilometers from Vigia we slowed down to 
pick up Pedro Moguel. Not till we had gone another 
kilometer did he offer the information that Griscom 
was back there in the bush, shooting. We would 
have called Griscom had Moguel spoken in time, 
for we were anxious to reach Boca de Paila before 
the sun became so low as to make it dangerous for 
us to cross the outer bar there. : 

When I reproached Moguel for this he looked 
pathetically crestfallen. Then, as if tomake amends, 
he said swiftly: 

‘‘T can show you a ruin across the bay.”’ 

Forgotten Gods of Lost Lagoons, when shall I 
understand Mexican character! Here we had been 
hanging around this desolate stifling bay for five 
days, beseeching Moguel and every native we met 


A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 143 


to tell us if they knew of any ruins. ‘‘No hay”’ 
they said (‘‘There aren’t any”’), until we have come 
to loathe that phrase as we have never loathed the 
more famous ‘“‘Majiana’”’ or ‘‘Quien sabe?” And 
now Moguel offers to make amends for a slight 
unthoughtfulness by showing us ‘‘a ruin across the 
bay.” ‘This is my fifth trip to Mexico, yet the more 
I see of these people the less do I pretend to under- 
stand their devious natures. Talk about the ‘‘in- 
scrutable Chinee”’ if you like. Beside the Mexican 
he is an openwork stocking. 

Of course, Moguel is not a Mexican by birth, but 
he is one by long residence, marriage and mental 
affinity. 

It seems the handsome youth, Pinto, who tried 
to find us a shrine yesterday, is Moguel’s stepson. 
Moguel has appointed him to take us to ‘‘the ruin 
across the bay.’ This lad’s whole mellifluous name 
is Ambrosio Pinto. McClurg calls him ‘‘the Painted 
Nectar’? and Whiting suggests, ‘‘The Venus de 
Mexico.”’ His intentions seem excellent, but his 
intelligence and energy are perhaps inferior to his 
beauty. This combination lends itself to ridicule, 
particularly when the possessor of it is as conscious 
of that pulchritude as ‘‘the Ambrosial Boy”’ seems 
to be. 

Personally I have not yet had any fault to find 


1444 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


with him. I can see that he wears his neat flannel 
shirt, khaki trousers and wide-brimmed, high 
crowned Mexican straw sombrero with a jauntiness 
unusual in the young chiclero. And it is obvious 
that the revolver hung in his cartridge belt is aimed 
at the Seforitas. But what of it? We were all 
young once, even Whiting. And Ambrosio will add 
a valuable touch of ‘‘color”’ to our pictures. Indeed, 
it is amusing how he becomes suddenly alert when 
kodak or camera is unlimbered. 

We have arranged that Pinto will not only take 
us to the near ruin but will pilot us to Chunyaxché, 
indeed will continue with us at the salary of three 
pesos a day as far as Cozumel Island, where Am- 
brosio’s mother and small brothers and sisters are 
living. 

Griscom’s absence did not delay us after all, for 
he was on board the schooner fifteen minutes before 
we had untangled a new maize of red tape presented 
to us at the last minute by the wizened, sharp faced 
Collector of the Customs. It seems his name is 
Noveles. If this is the plural of novela (fiction) he 
is well named, for outside of Russia I have never 
met a Government officer more prolific in the creation 
of imaginary difficulties. 

He could not let us sail until he had casas 
assurance that we appreciated the delicate situation 


A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 145 


into which he had placed himself by allowing us 
to land here without the proper papers. We must 
be very careful not to tell the authorities at: Cozumel 
that we had put in here or Sefior Noveles would find 
himself in hot water. Did we appreciate the delicacy 
of this matter and how he had jeopardized his posi- 
tion for our benefit? 

We assured him that we did. But he continued 
to hold our papers. Whereupon Spinden’s intui- 
tion, based on his long experience in these countries, 
revealed to him that here was a knot best cut with a 
knife of gold. 

So I hastened to the office of Sefior Noveles in a 
big barn of a building with a tin roof and begged him 
to accept an American five dollar gold piece as a 
recuerdo—a souvenir—of our visit. He accepted it 
with dignified thanks and gave up the ship’s papers. 

I do not want to appear to cavil at this gentle old 
official. Fate has condemned him to live in a town 
of a few bleak tin-roofed sheds, a place bare of ‘all 
diversions but simple food and plentiful sleep, a 
parody on a seaport, of whose population at low 
ebb he constitutes one half. His salary cannot be 
much more than a pittance. Can he be blamed for 
picking up a little graft when luck throws in his 
way a yacht loaded with foreigners who are rolling 
in money, according to his standards? Seldom have 


146 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


I parted with a five dollar gold piece more cheerfully. 
And if the recuerdo has already been sent to Santa 
Cruz de Bravo in exchange for that white agua- 
diente, why I wish you joy and a stronger stomach 
than I have, Sevior Noveles. 

Spinden and I find Griscom something of a hero 
on the schooner. While we were exchanging diplo- 
matic phrases with General May, Griscom was 
landing a fifteen foot shark which had been hanging 
around the schooner to the annoyance of Whiting’s 
chronic will-to-swim. When the shark was hooked 
several men jumped to the line, all shouting at once. 
One urged getting a boathook or something, and 
they all ran off, leaving Griscom braced as against 
a racehorse, his gloves smoking with the outgoing 
line. He hung on grimly till the others collected 
their wits. After a long fight the shark was pulled 
close enough for McClurg to shoot it three times 
through the head. 

Griscom found a colony of flamingoes inhabiting 
the shore northeast of Vigia, but could not approach 
near enough to take photographs. The verification 
of the existence of this colony is a thing to be proud 
of, however, for this is the farthest south record of 
these birds in Central America. Last, but not least, 
our bird man shot near Vigia a rosy ant tanager of 
a new species. That’s five new birds! 


pury SITY 0} SurureMm e—Moq Ino woJy yIeYsS S,3In[QoW Suny oy 


A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 147 


McClurg has not been idle either. He took the 
schooner some twelve miles toward the head of the 
bay from Vigia, and when the shoaling waters per- 
suaded Gough to anchor McClurg and Whiting and 
Griscom went two or three miles further in the Imp. 
At that point even the Imp began to find insufficient 
water, and the exploring party had to turn back. 
My hope that we might find ruins near the unknown 
head of the bay is shattered. The old Mayas would 
hardly have built on the edge of the maze of man- 
grove keys and barely covered mud bars which 
McClurg says extended as far southwestward as he 
could see when he had to turn back. For the great 
trading canoes of the Mayas probably drew as much 
water as the Imp. 

The schooner has already proved a good sea boat. 
And on McClurg’s trip up the bay she proved to be 
all that he hoped when, with a bottle of beer at 
Belize, he christened her ‘‘a good mud boat.” <A 
dozen times the mud clutched her, says McClurg, 
but she extricated herself each time without any 
such elaborate measures as we had to take on Hicks’ 
Key. 

On Pinto’s advice we anchored at the mouth of a 
narrow bay between the mainland and Allen Point. 
Ambrosio confirms the word of the Belize fisherman 
that this inlet connects with the ocean at Boca de 


148 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Paila, and that Allen Point is not a peninsula at 
all as our chart indicates, but is merely the southern 
extremity of a long thin island, a mere sand bar sup- 
porting some fifteen miles of guano palms and coco- 
nut trees. 

Pinto said the ruin was near three conspicuous 
palms about three kilometers from the position of 
the Albert. But these three coconut trees were not 
reached until the Imp had anchored off a pretty 
little beach a good ten kilometers from the schooner. 
Then there was a delay about finding the ruin. 
Pinto had chanced upon it when gathering firewood 
for a fishing boat two years ago, and he had never 
returned till now. 

He indicated the general direction to follow, and 
we spread out at intervals of twenty feet, Spinden, 
McClurg, Whiting, Pinto and I. So thick was the 
brush that even at such close quarters we often lost 
sight of each other. But in pauses between his 
own attacks on the bush each man could hear the 
swish of other machetes, and hear the cries of, ‘‘Do 
you see it yet?” ... “Is this another ‘sell’ of 
Venus’s like yesterday’s shrine?”’ 

As luck had it I caught the first glimpse of the 
first Maya ruin found by the expedition. Through 
the falling green ahead of me as I raised machete for 
another blow I saw a low grayish structure. 


A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 149 


‘“‘Here it is,’’ I shouted, ‘‘a poor thing, but our 
own!”’ 

It is a tiny building, only sixteen feet long by 
eight feet ten inches wide—outside measurements; 
only ten feet and a half by four and a half inside. 
The door is only three feet five inches high and the 
walls four feet. The roof, which has fallen in, was 
probably of stone slabs, for we found several of these 
within the walls. In short, it is a characteristic 
example of those curious little shrines much built 
during the last period of Maya architecture, those 
shrines whose diminutive size led earlier explorers 
of active imagination like Dr. Le Plongeon to the 
erroneous hypothesis that the builders had been dwarfs. 

Because of its location between the booming ocean 
and the placid salt lagoon we had just left Spinden 
thinks that perhaps fishermen once came to this 
little temple to burn incense to some watery divinity. 
Appropriate to this suggestion there are fossil shells 
imbedded in the coral rock which is the material of 
which the building was made. As it is of late- 
period Maya architecture it probably is not more 
than seven hundred years old. 

We have called it ‘‘Chenchomac,”’ using the name 
which Ambrosio says the Indians apply to this 
locality. In Maya Chenchomac means ‘‘Well of the 


9 


Fox. 


150 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


‘In Maya?” it may be asked. That is in the 
language of the modern Indians of this country, 
whom scientists agree to call Mayas. It must always 
be remembered, however, that these Indians use 
Spanish characters when they write their language, 
or rather, Spanish characters are used by the learned 
men who construct Maya grammars and make other 
linguistic studies in the hope of finding some con- 
nection between the modern language and the baffling 
hieroglyphs. For these Indians of today cannot read 
a single hieroglyph. 

We cast through the bush for an hour, hoping 
vainly to find more buildings. Tired of fighting 
thorns and mosquitoes we sat down on the ocean 
beach and watched the waves burst into clouds of 
white. This beach of fine creamy sand extended 
both north and south as far as we could see. I 
suppose some day the realtors will find it, and there 
will be another Florida boom. But thank God, I 
shall be as dead as the Mayas who built that shrine 
to their Turtle Deity. 

Here is yet a place where one may escape the 
tawdriness, the filth, the aching confusion of ugli- 
ness and noise with which man has seen fit to ruin 
the placid green face of the earth. 

We took off our boots and wiggled our toes in 
the sand, in the little uphill rivers of clean foam and 


UMO INO jnq SUTY} [[eUIS e—oUlIYS S,UBUTIOYSY B JO SUTBUTOI a10Jaq Ose pue uepuTds 


A SHRINE OF ANCIENT FISHERMEN 151 


clean green water,—the last fillip of those ponderous 
swells which rolled in from Africa. Here I could 
never know, thank God, those chaotic fears, those 
indefinable feelings of inferiority which an hour in 
New York or London or Chicago always awake in 
me. ‘There was noise enough here, but a simple 
noise which did not daze the brain but rather 
whetted it, the oldest noise in the world, the shout 
of the leaping wind and the thunder of the tumbling 
sea. 

That wind grew and whipped froth around our 
boat’s stern as she scudded for the schooner through 
a gray, angry dusk. But we were well content with 
the world and with each other. 

It is a small thing, that shrine of Chenchomac. 
But it is a beginning. We have discovered some- 
thing of that which we are seeking, and our appetite 
is sharpened for more. 

Chunyaxché has been a name, a cross pencilled 
ona bare map. Yes, and a living hope. But now 
it is a conviction, a vivid conviction of buildings 
shrouded by brush, buildings gray with weather ex- 
cept where some falling tree has scraped off the 
patina of dead centuries and shown the true white 
of the limestone. 


CHAPTER VII 
THE FACES OF OLD GODS 


THE Albert got underway at dawn and picked a 
hole in the reef about a mile and a half east of Allen 
Point. The wind dropped rapidly, but it had been 
enough east of north to leave tall oily seas, which 
threw the schooner about with creaking of idle booms 
and skidding of loose objects like a boathook, my 
rubber boots and Spinden’s cot. Spinden was pros- 
trate again, wedged against the Imp on the forward 
deck. Our temporary mutilations by insects are 
nothing to what he endures for the expedition. 

Boca de Paila is about eighteen miles north of 
Allen Point. 

‘‘Boca de Paila,” says Spinden, ‘‘is hard to get 
into, hard to stay in, and hard to get out of.” 

This statement is admirable, for it is at the same 
time succinct, pertinent and complete. The Mex- 
ican name is well chosen. Boca de Paitla means 
‘‘Mouth of a Cauldron.”” The ‘‘mouth”’ in the reef 
here is narrow, and the water inside is nearly always 
turbulent, for the insufficient reef merely knocks 

152 


THE FACES OF OLD GODS 153 


the white caps off the sea rollers, does not stop them 
or even change their rhythm. Of all the alleged 
harbors along this God-forsaken coast Boca de Paila 
most strains the allegation. After dodging coral 
heads all the way in from the reef mouth and bump- 
ing bottom twice here we were anchored in the midst 
of them on none too good holding ground, pitching 
and lurching in a nasty swell with the foaming beach 
only four hundred yards under our lee. 

Spinden, who had lain in a coma all morning, was 
now in a fever to start for Chunyaxché. This day 
was half gone and prudence suggested awaiting the 
beginning of another before undertaking to reach 
ruins a vague but considerable distance away over 
uncharted inland waters which our pilot seemed to 
know none too well. But our archzologist’s ardent 
yearning for terra firma was a moving sight. With 
a haste which was regretted later, duffle bags were 
packed by the shore party, consisting of Spinden, 
Whiting, Ambrosio Pinto and myself. Griscom was 
to come into the interior later if we found any land 
birds for him to skin. Meanwhile he would hunt 
the beaches and marsh. McClurg had hydrographic 
work to do, and, as usual, he preferred any schooner 
to any land. His intense aversion for land and 
Spinden’s equal antipathy for sea continue to be a 
spectacle for a philosopher to muse upon. 


154 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


About half a mile directly behind the mouth in 
the reef is a break in the shore, an opening into a 
great expanse of lagoons, lakes and swamps. (Am- 
brosio says that not even the Indians know the exact 
limits of this ‘‘lake country,’’ as they call it.) This 
inner boca like the outer one is guarded by a bar. 
A small sloop which had crossed this was anchored 
on the inner side, but our schooner was too deep to 
follow her. Indeed the surf on the bar looked as if 
the feat of crossing would be difficult even for our 
small boats. We got into the larger one. 

To make the Imp lighter crossing the bar most 
of the baggage was put into the other tender. In 
Delirium Tremens the Captain now led the way to 
the bar. (This does not sound like safe pilotage 
but it served us well.) ‘We were soon in smooth 
water, the hum of the two outboard motors ex- 
tinguishing the disappointed roar of the surf we 
had evaded. Here at its entrance the lagoon offered 
loveliness to lure us into the mud and mangrove 
horror beyond. Through deliciously clear tropic 
water white sand gleamed under our keel, exaggerat- 
ing the vivid gold and blue and black of swift fish. 
The lagoon was so narrow that on each side we could 
almost count the shells on a creamy beach. 

The Imp used the little sloop as a dock while she 
took her baggage from the Delirium Tremens. ‘This 


THE FACES OF OLD GODS 155 


sloop, the Nautilus, at fairly regular intervals brings 
here supplies from Cozumel for the Indians and 
carries their chicle back. To make this exchange 
the Indians come thirty-seven miles from their holy 
city of Chunpom, twenty-five miles afoot or a-mule 
and twelve miles in fragile dug-out canoes nine feet 
long and eighteen inches wide. 

With our handsome and youthful guide in our 
bow we left the friendly Nautilus and Delirium 
Tremens and turned toward the unknown. The 
lagoon forked, Ambrosio Pinto waved his hand 
majestically to the right and we rounded a point 
of black mangroves which blotted the other boats 
from our view. Almost immediately we ran 
aground. 

“You say you know this channel, Ambrosio?”’ 

“Si Sefior.’’ He added that it was shallow for 
only twenty feet. We all got out and dragged the 
boat through six inches of water. When we had 
gone fifty feet Ambrosio said we were almost out of 
the shallows. We got out of them after four hundred 
feet more of this back-breaking pulling. At this 
point the water was deep enough to float the Imp 
if only one of us walked. Ambrosio was nominated. 
After another hundred yards he found deep enough 
water to float his weight with ours. Our little pro- 
peller threw up a wake of swirling mud. ‘The lagoon 


156 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


was now a wide shallow lake of brackish water with 
low shores of the monotonous mangrove. 

When we had reached the middle of this lake a 
jet of water as from a lawn fountain sprang upward 
from the Imp’s bottom. We regarded this phenom- 
enon with mild curiosity. It is surprising how short 
a time one must be exposed to the constant risk 
of running aground, capsizing and sinking in order 
to become callous to such matters. Mexican in- 
difference and fatalism was in our blood already. 
The water was only four feet deep but that was 
enough to sink the boat and raise havoc with our 
baggage. And Iam sure that if the water had been 
four fathoms deep our reaction would have been the 
same. A delicious humor filled our veins. The leak 
was a matter for discussion, for debate but not for 
emphatic action. 

Spinden suggested it be stopped with my hand- 
kerchief. I happened to be carrying two of linen 
and one of cotton. I wanted the latter to clean 
my shotgun with but reluctantly began searching 
for it through stuffed pockets while suggesting 
that the tail of Spinden’s pink shirt would make 
excellent caulking. No, he had worn the shirt to 
impress the natives and he would keep it for that 
purpose, tail and all. 

I kept pulling out linen handkerchiefs but couldn’t 


THE FACES OF OLD GODS 157 


find the cotton one. Much of the lake was now 
in the boat and the rest was very close to her gun- 
wales. My regard for linen and Spinden’s for silk 
began to be criticized by Whiting, who was running 
the engine and in its noise was not appreciating the 
repartee. At this moment Ambrosio finished whit- 
tling a plug from a pole we carried. The plug re- 
duced the leak to modest proportions. We were 
saved a two-mile wade back to the Nautilus. And 
we had discovered a use for the ‘‘Venus de Mexico.” 
Ambrosio could whittle. 

Now another debate arose. The question might 
be stated this way; ‘‘Resolved, that my baggage 
shall not be put in the wet bottom of this boat.”’ 

Everyone took the affirmative. And everyone 
suited the action to the word and lifted his belongings 
to such spots on the commodious seats of the Imp 
as were not occupied by three wrangling Americans 
and a silent Indian. The boat became top-heavy. 
This situation was dangerous, but each man’s reasons 
for keeping his stuff out of the wet belly of the boat 
were good. 

Spinden: ‘‘Confound it, my bags are full of films, 
the water would ruin them!”’ 

Mason: ‘‘My duffle bag is loaded with beans and 
coffee and crackers. Do you want them soaked in 
brackish water?’’ 


158 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Whiting: ‘‘My bag is full of ammunition, which 
is future food. Films are a luxury, soaked crackers 
can be eaten, but you can’t kill a turkey with a 
water-logged cartridge!” 

Someone thought of a happy compromise. Am- 
brosio’s poor little duffle bag was put at the bottom 
and the oars laid between that bag and the anchor 
to make a rack for the other luggage. I began to 
bail with the shell of a gourd. 

At last we reached the other side of this expanse 
of open shallows and entered a channel some hundred 
yards wide which wound among clumps of mangrove. 
Herons, bitterns, white egrets and their reddish 
cousins and roseate spoonbills rose at the buzz of 
the first gasoline engine they had ever heard. In 
half an hour or so the channel narrowed rapidly. 
We tasted the water, it was sweet. The wide, slug- 
gish river had become a freshwater stream with a 
very perceptible current. 

Instead of deepening, however, it was shoaling. 
And it was narrowing at an alarming rate. Con- 
sequently the current was increasing until our motor 
could barely make headway against it. To add to 
our difficulties the course of the stream now wound 
like the path of an erratic snake. Our pilot sat in 
the bow, his beautiful face set in that vacant ex- 
pression characteristic of the least cerebral type of 


THE FACES OF OLD GODS 159 


moving picture actor. He sat in the bow—and 
looked backward. 

Whiting stood up in the stern, cursing Ambrosio 
softly and steadily as he threw the metal steering 
handle from side to side and tried to determine which 
bank of the twisting rivulet harbored the fewer snags. 
At each turn our stern would graze the bank and our 
following wash over-ran the land. 

It was like Mississippi navigation on a very 
Lilliputian scale. Where the current bore around a 
bend and into the opposite bank there was the deep- 
est water and there we had to go despite the current. 
The depths ranged from one to three feet, and we 
drew nearly one. In the midst of some tiny rapids 
we bumped bottom, hung there a breathless instant, 
then with the help of an extra oar moved ahead. 
As we grazed a bank Spinden sighted rare orchids 
and jumped ashore. He could easily walk faster 
than we were now going. It was navigation under 
the most peculiar circumstances I have ever seen, 
and I dwell upon it because it reflects an interesting 
light upon the builders of the ruins who poled their 
canoes laboriously against this swift stream—as in- 
deed do their descendants who sell chicle to the 
white men today. If you chew gum reflect that its 
fundamental ingredient may have been brought down 
this difficult stream in a dug-out canoe. 


160 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


For another reason this river is interesting; it is 
the most northerly surface river we have ever heard 
of in the Yucatan Peninsula, which is a limestone 
plain famous for its underground rivers, pools and 
lakes but notorious for the absence of surface streams. 

The swamp gradually gave way to savannah. ° 

We swept around a bend, Ambrosio waved a 
majestic arm, and there was the first temple, dazzling 
white in the sun! 

It is a one-storied, oblong building, rather small— 
in short, an outpost of the city. It faces a lake 
about two hundred feet west of it, a lake of which 
the river we had been following is an outlet. With 
happy inspiration Spinden promptly named the 
building, ‘‘Vigia del Lago”’ (‘‘The Watch on the 
Lake,”’ or ‘‘The Lookout on the Lake’’). 

There were no trees near the building except a 
dead one on its roof. But there was a lot of brush 
and high grass, which had to be cut down before 
we could get photographs of the front of the temple 
with its three doors, and an interesting carving over 
them. 

The size of the lake surprised us. Ambrosio says 
it is fifteen miles long and three miles wide, but it 
is not shown on any of the maps we brought. It 
was the narrow northern tip of the lake which we 
crossed. 


ajnoz opel} BABY po Ue UO [ANY JO Ay19 [erOIAUIUIOD BY} JO ySOdjno UB pug 9M 


THE FACES OF OLD GODS 161 


The stolid Ambrosio seemed to be leading us 
directly into a bank of high grass when it suddenly 
opened and showed us a channel as narrow as the 
upper end of the river we had left. The more we 
studied the construction of this the more convinced 
were we that it was a canal, a canal made by the 
Mayas centuries ago. It ran nearly straight, and 
although its banks were covered with grass they 
were higher than the land behind, and on each side 
of the water and paralleling it could be seen the 
long mound made of the earth thrown out when the 
canal was dug. A barely perceptible current moved 
against us. 

After a quarter of a mile of this we entered a 
second lake, perhaps a mile and a half broad and 
two miles long. On the farther side were visible 
three or four roofs of thatch, and soon we could 
distinguish two men observing us from a little dock 
made of logs. A dazzling white beach belted the 
lake. Behind the yellowish roofs we were approach- 
ing rose high trees—the begirining of the big bush. 
Altogether it seemed a delightful spot to us weary 
of mangrove swamps and mud. We could not yet 
see the insects. 

The Imp grounded a few feet from the little dock 
and we waded ashore. One ofthe two men awaiting 
us was Sefior Amado Castillo, head chiclero of this 


162 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


region, right-hand man of General Juan Vega, of 
Chunpom, who is second in command to General 
May, military commander of all the Indians of 
Quintana Roo. 

‘‘Yes, there are ruins here,’’ said Don Amado, 
“Tl take you to them.” Spinden went off with 
him while Whiting and I carried baggage, cots and 
my hammock under a thatched roof supported on 
a pole framework, a shelter offered us by the hos- 
pitable Sefior Castillo. It was nearly dark, and we 
began supper. Now we regretted the haste in which 
we had started. I had forgotten bacon, lard and 
flour. But we made a makeshift meal of pea soup, 
rice, dried raisins and tea under the thatched roof 
which Don Amado lent us for the night. 

Spinden returned in high satisfaction. He had 
seen two buildings, he said, a structure with pillars 
and a temple on a pyramidal mound, a typical Maya 
‘*Castillo,’”’ to use the misnomer which has stuck 
to this type of temple since the uncouth Spanish 
adventurers first applied it. Dark had fallen before 
Spinden’s guide of the fit name (Castillo) could 
show him more than these two structures. But 
Don Amado said there were seven or eight other 
buildings in the bush, and any quantity of mounds 
marking where others had already succumbed to 
decay. 


THE FACES OF OLD GODS 163 


As we listened to Spinden over our crackling little 
fire Whiting and I forgot our fatigue, forgot the 
stinging ants which swarmed over us from the ground 
on which we had stretched our aching bodies. 
Here was success, complete, dazzling—and now that 
we had it—ridiculously easy. Forgotten were not 
only the bites, the bruises, the sea-sickness of today 
and yesterday, but the foot weariness and the heart- 
aches of the trying days of organization in New York. 
A city with eight or ten temples still standing! 

Spinden and Whiting put up their cots on opposite 
sides of this shack, and in the middle I hung my 
hammock under the great billowing piece of canvas 
and dangling mosquito net which the archzologist 
calls my “‘hangar.”’ It was a cold night—and the 
knack of keeping blankets about one in a narrow 
hammock has never been mine. Then there were 
tick bites to keep me awake, and above all, wonder 
about these ruins. | 

Quietly I reached down for my boots, putting 
them on in the hammock to avoid the ants which 
were swarming on the dirt floor. 

Fully dressed I slipped out of the hut between my 
snoring companions and followed the path I had 
seen Spinden return by afew hours before. A branch 
led off to the right, and instinct told me to take that. 

I had gone perhaps two hundred yards through 


164 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


the mystery of moonlit woods when there rose 
through the trees at the left of the path the high dark 
bulk of something which gleamed where moon rays 
reached it. 

I worked around to the west of it, where there 
was a slight opening. The low moon was now be- 
hind me. And there rising before me was a typical- 
_ Maya pyramid, four sided with ascending terraces 
and a wide stairway. And on its top a temple, 
shining like silver under the moon. A true Maya 
temple not seen by archeologist until today. And 
carved on its corners—one to each corner—the faces 
of old gods. 


CHAPTER VIII 
A LOST TRADE ROUTE 


IT was in the afternoon of Thursday, January 
28, that we reached the ruins. Nowit is Wednesday 
February 3, and we are all back on the schooner. 
Our fingers are stiff from gripping machetes and 
axes, our palms are broken and blistered. But for 
every blister a Maya building new to archeology 
has been plotted on scaled paper for the archives of 
the Peabody Museum of Harvard. Not since Ore- 
gon logging days have I known a week of such phys- 
ical labor; and never have I known labor which 
brought such quick and overwhelming reward. 

Our first morning at the ruins we tried to map out 
a plan of attack on the bush, but it was impossible 
to stick to any plan. A man would begin to cut his 
way in toward one building when he would catch a 
glimpse of more enticing walls to one side. Before 
he was half through clearing the bush about this 
he would be diverted by a shout from a companion: 

‘“‘Hey, there’s a painting on the wall over the 
altar in this shrine, come and look at it!’’ Or: 

165 


166 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


‘Hombre, I just dug up a round stone in front of 
this temple. Part of a pillar, or you can have my 
beans tonight. Come and help me dig up the rest 
of it.” 

Castillo says the ruins should not be called Chuny- 
axché, which is the name of a native settlement 
several kilometers from here. He believes the city 
now far gone in decay was called Muyil, and that 
it gave that name to an Indian village which was 
so called, and which flourished in the very midst of 
the ruins some fifty years ago. He says the Indians 
call the small lake near the ruins Laguna de Muyil: 
and that their name for the larger one is Laguna de 
Xlabpak (or Lake of the Big Wall, in reference prob- x 
ably to the temple Spinden named Vigia del Lago 
or to another ruin which Castillo says stands far 
down the western shore of the lake, a ruin we have 
not had time to inspect).? 

It was hard for us to give up the name of Chuny- 
axché but Muyil does seem better supported by the 
evidence, and we have accepted it. | 

Our first hasty survey of Muyil the morning 
after our arrival convinced us that we could not do 
justice to the ruins without several days’ work. 


t After my return to New York an officer of the American 
Geographic Society sent me a new map made for the chicle com- 
panies which shows both these lakes. The smaller is here called 
Lago de Muyil and the larger Lago de Chunyaxché.—TueE AUTHOR. 


From this high building canoes approaching Muyil were sighted before 
they could see the city 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 167 


Axes were needed to cut trees too large for our 
machetes. Rope was needed to make less danger- 
ous the task of climbing the chief temple, parts of 
which will soon cave in. Food was needed, iodine 
for tick bites, and many other things. The junior 
member of the expedition took the Imp back to the 
schooner for supplies. Before we left he did this 
so often that we came to speak of the ‘‘Whiting 
Ferry Service.” 

For six days we worked from dawn to dark, with 
Amado Castillo and an Indian helping us. Yet so 
thick was the growth of trees, shrubs and vines over 
the buildings that this period was not sufficient to 
clear them all. Consequently there were several 
interesting buildings of which we failed to get 
photographs through the confused dim light of the 
dense bush. One of these was a building which 
the Indians called ‘‘El Centro,” the center. This 
was a temple on a terraced mound. We had vis- 
ited it several times before we found, under the base 
of the stairway to the external temple, an opening 
into a passage which led to an internal house of 
worship, a buried temple in the center of the mound! 
One of our Indians ran away when he saw us going 
under ground, but Castillo, who does not share 
native fears of ghosts and demons, told us this 
subterranean chapel had been used as a hiding place 


168 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


by Indians fighting Mexico in the revolt of 1848 and 
more recently. Indeed, beside fragments of rotted 
baskets and gourd vessels was a relic of much more 
recent times, a piece of a boat’s rudder with an 
iron fastening. Twenty or thirty fighting men 
might easily hide in this cavernous place of ancient 
worship, but why should they bring the rudder of a 
boat with them? Were they repairing it while Mex- 
ican soldiers hunted the shores of the two lakes for 
them? What dramas this temple must have seen! 

And what occult rites were observed here? The 
fact that it has three altars, the fact that it was 
hidden under a building which some half surviving 
tradition has persuaded the modern Indians was 
the center of the ancient city—these facts and others 
suggest that this secret place of worship had some 
special importance. Perhaps this holy of holies was 
forbidden to ordinary devotees of Itzamna, the Su- 
preme Deity, Kukulcan, the Feathered Serpent, 
Ahpuch, Lord of Death, and other Maya gods. 
Perhaps it was reserved for the devotions of those 
who had reached the rank of priest. Perhaps Em- 
perors or Sacerdotal Monarchs themselves came here 
to burn their offerings of copal—the incense of gum 
which is used by the Indians to this day. Of all the 
ruins at Muyil this well-preserved subterranean 
temple has perhaps the most appeal to a layman. 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 169 


If it were reproduced in an American museum it 
would draw large crowds. 

But to the scientist other buildings are more 
interesting because they can give him more informa- 
tion about the age of Muyil and the nature of the 
people who lived there. 

Of course we are particularly on the alert for 
hieroglyphic inscriptions. These are very often 
found on upright stone slabs, standing apart by them- 
selves with one end in the ground. On the after- 
noon of our fourth day at the ruins Spinden found 
two of these, one at each side of a shrine. But, alas, 
centuries of wind and rain had erased the messages 
which almost certainly had been carved upon their 
faces. This fact might lead the novice to the 
conclusion that these slabs must be very old, for 
distinguishable glyphs have been found dating 
as far back as the second century after Christ. How- 
ever, this conclusion would be erroneous. You 
cannot judge the age of a city solely by the degree 
of erasure of its hieroglyphs, for the action of weather 
upon stone is very variable. Where these stele— 
as the slabs are called—have fallen face downward 
upon some soft bed of earth or leaves the inscriptions 
are often preserved years after they would have been 
obliterated had the carved mileposts in Maya his- 
tory continued to stand erect. 


170 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


There is much evidence that Muyil belongs to 
the last great period in Maya culture, the Period of 
the League of Mayapan. Of course, the city’s loca- 
tion in the northern part of the Maya area would 
lead to this supposition before an examination had 
been made. Then a look at the grotesque faces 
decorating the four corners of the highest temple 
would alone incline the archeologist to the opinion 
that Muyil is not a First Empire city. Such faces 
or ‘‘mask panels’? are common in Maya architec- 
ture; but in the southern and older area the details 
of the face are generally built up of stucco, whereas 
in the northern and later area they are in relief. 
These faces at Muyil are in relief—that is, cut into 
the walls. 

This tall temple with the grotesque faces of con- 
ventionalized art at its four corners presents one 
entirely new feature in Maya architecture. This is 
a round cupola or small tower, which rises from the 
roof of the temple proper, itself set upon a pyramidal 
mound of five terraces, ascended by a wide stairway. 
The cupola enhances the effect of height and 
grandeur. 

The whoop of joy which Spinden let out when he 
found this cupola was good to hear. We had been 
clearing brush and trees a foot in diameter from the 
terraces and stairway for several hours. At the risk 


. 
f 
t 
j 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 171 


of a dangerous cave-in he climbed to the top of the 
temple, where the brush and cactus were so thick 
that he had hacked for fifteen or twenty minutes 
before he could discern the outline of the cupola. 
I believe his elation did much to convince the Indians 
helping us that we were not hunting for gold—as their 
kind persist in believing. 

We were interested to see that cactus grew about 
this cupola. There was no such desert growth on 
the wet ground thereabouts, but the dry, rock roof 
of the temple provided the right climate for the 
familiar cat’s-claw of arid regions. 

The roof of the temple was only fifty-four feet 
above the ground. But the building and supporting 
mound of five terraces had been planned in such care- 
ful proportion to each other and in such cunning 
relation to their surroundings that not only did they 
seem bigger than they were, but this impression of 
their imposing bulk was enhanced by each view of 
them. The same thing is true of El Castillo at 
Chichen Itza and of the House of the Diviner and 
its supporting pyramidal mount at Uxmal. In fact 
this is true of every good example of the Maya Cas- 
tallo type of edifice, that is, a temple on a pyramidal, 
terraced mound with broad stone stairway. I never 
look at such a structure without saying to myself, 
“What a satisfactory mass.” 


172 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


All Maya buildings are made of rough blocks of 
limestone held with a mortar of the same material 
and often provided with a surface coating of stucco. 
Nearly all Maya buildings, whether temples or pal- 
aces, are placed upon artificial mounds. But in the 
southern area there was a tendency to place these 
separate mounds on one large common base or 
artificial acropolis. This sort of acropolis was not 
used in the north, where the city planning seems to 
have been more haphazard. Indeed, it was mainly 
in the south, too, that cities were carefully orien- 
tated with regard to the four chief points of the 
compass. 

Regular depressions or sunken courts, which may 
have been theaters, are also characteristic of the 
south. The same thing is chiefly true of the use of 
stele, or obelisks, carved with inscriptions. 

Muyil, which has stele, and which is marked by 
some observance of the principle of orientation, is 
situated in the southern part of the northern area. 

As we looked at the grinning faces of the gods 
carved on the corners of Muyil’s Castillo we thought 
of the barbaric spectacles which they had seen. 
We recalled the description of human sacrifice on 
a similar temple at Uxmal as pieced together by the 
imagination of the Spanish historian, Cogolludo, 
from hints he had picked up among the natives: 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 173 


“The High Priest had in his Hand a large, broad 
and sharp Knife made of Flint. Another Priest 
carried a wooden collar wrought like a snake. The 
persons to be sacrificed were carried one by one up 
the Steps, stark naked, and as soon as laid on the 
Stone, had the Collar put upon their Necks, and 
the four priests took hold of the hands and feet. 
Then the High Priest with wonderful Dexterity 
ripped up the Breast, tore out the Heart, reeking, 
with his Hands, and showed it to the Sun, offering 
him the Heart and Steam that came from it. Then 
he turned to the Idol, and threw it in his face, which 
done, he kicked the body down the steps, and it 
never stopped till it came to the bottom, because 
they were very upright.” 


According to our standards the Mayas were cruel, 
no doubt, although they made much less sacrificial 
use of blood than the Aztecs. But when all is said 
and done the Mayas were perhaps the most deeply 
religious race that ever lived. Remember that when 
an explorer finds a ruined Maya city he is finding 
merely the stone buildings which formed the cere- 
monial center of the ancient metropolis. ‘The other 
buildings once there, perhaps thousands of them, 
were constructed of wood and thatch which turned 
to dust long before the arrival of the archeologist. 
It is the great public buildings which remain, and 
the significant thing about the Mayas is that nearly 


174 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


all of their public buildings were devoted to religion. 
Even the so-called palaces probably housed priests 
rather than lay kings, for church and state went 
hand in hand with the Mayas and the rulers had 
a sacerdotal character. The spiritual impulse dom- 
inated the whole life of this ancient people. Not 
the Sphynx of Egypt, not the Temple of Heaven in 
Peking, not the Roman Forum, not even the Acrop- 
olis of Athens cries out with such vigorous emotion 
as these decaying shrines of the first Americans. 

Think of their building their hundreds of cities 
without iron, think of their cutting practically all 
these stones with only tools of harder stone (for the 
few copper chisels which have been found seem to 
have been a rather late invention never widely used). 
Then think of their hauling those big stone blocks 
to the tops of their pyramids without any modern 
machinery. Apparently they had no pulleys, not 
even a simple wheel. 

The majesty of the performance gives one faith. 
Yes though time has tumbled most of it the remnant 
of the beauty which once shone through every Maya 
city makes even the confirmed pessimist wonder 
if man is such acontemptible insect after all. 

Is it possible that the outcropping of a deep feel- 
ing for beauty is the first sign of decay in a race? 
Once amid the loveliness of Chichen Itza Xoch 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 175 


suggested this to me. It seems an obscene theory. 
At least if there is anything in it our dear United 
States are safe from decay for a long time to come. 

About one-third of a mile northwest from our 
camp on the edge of the lake we found a group of 
four buildings. Three were so far gone that their 
past function was hard to determine, but the fourth 
was a fairly well preserved temple. On clearing 
away a pile of rubbish from the western and chief 
entrance to this we found that this portal had had 
two sets of pillars at each side, one pillar behind the 
other, instead of abreast of it. This is the first in- 
stance of this tandem arrangement of pillars we 
know of in the whole Maya area. And like the 
cupola on E/ Castillo it indicates originality on the 
part of the men who built this old city, and a flair 
for experiment. 

Perhaps forty yards north of this group is a small 
temple which interested us because of a fragment of 
painting on the rear wall over the altar. Try as we 
did we could not bring to light enough of this paint- 
ing to tell what it had been, a scene of sacrifice, per- 
haps, or a portrait of some grotesque, anthropo- 
morphic god. At a point not far behind this edifice 
begins a raised stone roadway which ends at the foot 
of the western side of E/ Castillo. This structure is 
carefully oriented. 


176 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


When Whiting made the first of his many trips 


back to the schooner he took with him Ambrosio 
and an Indian who had just reached the lake from 
the interior with a mule train bearing chicle which 
Amado Castillo wanted to send to Cozumel aboard 
the sloop, Nautilus. Part of this cargo was put in 
the Imp, and part was loaded in a narrow eight-foot 
dug-out canoe which Whiting towed. Castillo said 
this chicle came from Chunpom, twenty-five miles 
northwest of Muyil. He calls Chunpom a “holy 
city,’ with a population of 5,000. Doubtless the 
truth is that the vicinity of the village of Chunpom 
holds this number of Indians, for these natives 
avoid close packed settlements as eagerly as the 
Chinese seek them. Perhaps in all Quintana Roo 
there are not more than 15,000 Mayas left. 

Spinden and I spent the first morning cutting trees 
growing out of the sides and roofs of the four build- 
ings in the northwest group. All morning beans 
were cooking, the same beans which had been too 
hard to eat the night before. Spinden and I sat 
out in the full force of the tropical sun and ate hot 
beans and drank hot tea. 

But an hour after we had gone back to work the 
sky was overcast, and a chill, damp wind was blow- 
ing from the north. At the first sign of rain the 
Indian who had been helping us, or rather who had 


, 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 177 


been helping Amado Castillo help us, scuttled for 
his hut. It seemed no great loss, however, for he had 
been utterly lazy. But Don Amado explained that 
the man is recuperating from malaria, which is 
ample excuse. 

Before long Spinden and I were wet to the skin, 
and thoroughly chilled in spite of our exercise. It 
seemed impossible that three hours before we had 
been regretting the necessity of drinking hot tea. 
Now hot tea was our greatest need. 

We sheathed our dripping machetes and jogged 
into camp, with the wind whipping at our heels. 
There was no firewood in our hut and the wood out- 
side was wet. But luckily I had brought a sterno, 
one of those little cans full of alcoholic fuel which 
constitutes a small stove in itself. We hung the 
teapot over the can of fire, and piled about it pieces 
of wood. The steam and smoke which the damp 
wood gave off drove the mosquitoes out of the open 
sided hut, and at intervals drove us out. The tea 
was so good that we decided to make a meal with- 
out waiting for the Jmp, whose return in this storm 
was unlikely anyway. We consumed vast plates 
of hot beans and stewed apricots and endless cups 
of tea. By this time our clothes were about dry 
enough to sleep in, and it was dark. Spinden risked 
his life by tinkering with a damp quantity of car- 


178 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


bide and an involved carbide lamp, but at last he 
got a light fixed so that he could read in bed. 

We started to undress when Spinden thought he 
heard the sound of an engine. Yes, despite the head 
wind and the lashing cold rain the Imp was coming! 
We ran down to the little log dock and probed the 
night with electric flashlights, to show them their 
way. 

As usual the boat hit bottom twenty feet from the 
dock and her occupants had to wade ashore. Whit- 
ing was followed by Griscom. ‘The bird man rushed 
up to me with rain sluicing off his familiar, disrep- 
utable sombrero. For all the dark of night and 
gloom of storm he had sensed the wild loveliness of 
this camp on the lake beneath the big zapote trees 
and he gripped my hands, exclaiming exultantly: 

‘‘Gad, man, this is the real thing—what?”’ 

“Is it wild enough for you at last?” 

Through the dark brown stubble he sate his 
hobo grin: 

‘“This’ll do, fellah. When do we eat?” 

Having finished mooring the Imp Ambrosio 
trailed us to the fire, a sack of grub over his right 
shoulder and a string of fish in his left hand. He 
cleaned them rapidly while Spinden and 1 offered 
Griscom and Whiting beans and apricots, and pre- 
pared to increase the menu with the bacon, rice, 


4 
: 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 179 


flour, canned goods and rum Whiting had brought. 

The fire now was a red roar, tingeing the black 
wet night as the wind lashed it out under the loo’ard 
eaves. When we four had eaten all we could hold 
Ambrosio began to cook his fish. They were deep 
silvery fish about ten inches long, looking like the 
scup of Cape Cod. After he had eaten six or seven 
the ‘“‘Ambrosial Boy’’ smoked the rest. He then 
stretched out on the floor, and in spite of the nipping 
ants went quickly to sleep. The rest of us turned 
in, all slightly damp. 

That was the coldest night yet. My two blankets 
were altogether inadequate. The one thing that 
could be said for that night was that the cold drove 
away the mosquitoes. 

Before dawn we were all awake, stretching and 
grumbling. The first definite remark was made 
by Spinden: 

‘“Two zones of life meet here,” quoth he, with 
the air of an oracle. 

“Ants and ticks?’ queried Whiting. 

Griscom’s quick, unrestrained laugh bubbled 
from his chest while the tears rolled down his face. 

“Well, I guess I'll put on my trousers,” remarked 
the archeologist, when his own laughter had 
stopped. 

‘Don’t put on mine,” I warned. 


180 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


‘You haven’t any,’’ he countered. At this the 
mirth became more raucous than ever. My only 
trousers at Muyil had been slashed and punctured 
from waist to knee by thorns and the sharp corners 
of stone buildings. For although limestone is soft 
it is hard enough to tear cloth, and whenever one 
is amid ruins one is always slipping on the loose 
stones which lie about and tearing something. The 
last button was gone, and a single, delicate safety 
pin held my lower garment up, and together. Orig- 
inally white duck the trousers were now a rich 
brown with black mottlings gained from charred 
wood. When IJ sprang from my hammock to don 
the infamous pants I so shook the roof of my ‘“‘han- 
gar’’ that a cool gallon of rain water which it had 
collected in the night was deposited on Whiting’s 
face. 

It was Griscom’s brilliant idea to hire Sefiora 
Castillo to cook for us. For the rest of our stay we 
ate in the largest of the four or five thatched shacks 
the chiclero had built on the low grassy bank over the 
creamy beach where we bathed at twilight and 
washed out our limited laundry lists. At every 
meal the malarial Indian who lived here and two 
or three others who came down from Chunpom with 
more chicle sat and watched us gravely, now and 
then breaking out in silly giggles at some mannerism 


- = ait . as. 2» r ade c sae - i ‘ aio’ ~ S$ 
oe ee ee ee ee ee a A ge Oe ee ae Oe, eee ed a eR een ee ee re 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 181 


of ours which struck them as unusually grotesque. 
From hints which Castillo let fall we soon realized 
that he had sent word to Juan Vega in Chunpom 
that some gringos were here, and that they had a 
schooner at Boca de Paila which would take ‘‘Gen- 
eral’’ Vega to Cozumel. There would have been no 
use grumbling about this even had we been so in- 
clined. And realizing how rare an event is the ar- 
rival of a commodious boat at Boca de Paila, and 
well aware that both Castillo and Vega had it in 
their power to help our work greatly or to stop it 
altogether, we vowed that it would give us great 
pleasure to have the “‘General’’ as our guest. 

Frequently our meals would be interrupted by 
the sight of game, a scaup duck swimming within 
a few yards of the east entrance to Castillo’s humble 
abode or a parrot in a clump of trees within a stone’s 
throw of the western door. Even if the bird was a 
woodpecker, too small to provide much substance, 
it yet offered the flavoring for the delicious gravy 
which Spinden was forever making with the help 
of our flour. Plain rice is one thing, and rice under 
hot brown gravy is another. 

Griscom got no new birds at Muyil, but he col- 
lected a number of valuable ones including other 
specimens of his new rosy ant tanager and oriole. 

I shot a cormorant in the lake one day and as it 


182 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


flopped in the water its mate circled about, in such 
obvious mental distress that I stayed my trigger 
finger as I aimed at the second bird. Then, at the 
last moment, I pulled; and perhaps the devoted bird 
really preferred to share the fate of its companion. 
My desire to eat a cormorant once shot on Long 
Island Sound had been thwarted by the cook’s flat 
refusal to touch the ugly black bird, and I was 
determined to try the meat of one of this pair. 
But before I was aware of what had happened their 
bones had been picked by the Indians. Ambrosio, 
who took part in the feast, says that cormorant 
should be cooked with plenty of red pepper and 
~ garlic. 

‘The garlic keeps you from tasting the cormorant 
and the cormorant keeps you from tasting the gar- 
lic,’’ he explains. 

The wind continued to blow from the north but 
the sky cleared and the weather warmed somewhat. 
It was neither temperature nor insects which ruined 
our third night in camp; it was mules. The pack 
animals of the chicle train stamped and snorted all 
through the hours of darkness. As our hut had 
no walls we could not keep them out of it. One of 
them nibbled at the mosquito netting which envel- 
oped Griscom’s cot, and another sampled some 
loose pages of notes which Spinden left under a small 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 183 


stick beside his bed. Whiting avers it was this ani- 
mal which later suffered a violent attack of cramps. 

Muyil is a paradise for insects, and were it not 
for the bugs the place would be a paradise for 
humans. Here there is not the usual scrubby growth 
of Yucatan, but tall noble trees, the real monte, or 
‘“‘mountain,’’ as natives call big bush. Each night 
a plump moon struck a silver trail across the lake 
and turned the beach to a ribbon of gold. At that 
lovely hour we could almost forget the horseflies 
which swarmed in the woods by day, and the mos- 
quitoes, ticks and ants which nipped and stung and 
burned our bodies regardless of the movements of 
the planets. Anyway, we could avoid them in the 
lake, where we swam often, with no fear of attack 
from the depths. 

Whiting, who is very dependent on his spectacles 
lost them off the Imp in six feet of water. Twenty- 
four hours later he rowed back, dove a few times, 
and found them! 

They were somewhat scratched by the sand. Per- 
haps this was the reason he missed by half a mile the 
western end of the canal between the two lakes when 
he brought Griscom and me down to the schooner 
yesterday, that is Tuesday, February 2. Of course, 
the wind, which had blown from the north for four 
days, had to come out hard from the southeast, 


184 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


dead ahead, just before daybreak. Even on the 
smaller lake the waves ran high enough to splash 
water over the tarpaulin with which Griscom pro- 
tected his box full of precious bird skins. When we 
reached the further end of the canal we were ham- 
mered by waves so high and so sharp that the only 
way we could take them was bow on. This meant 
laying a course which took us some two miles south 
of the outlet river, but we had to do it. 

The wind was blowing a young gale. Griscom and 
I were constantly engaged while crossing the lake 
in throwing out water which came over the gunwales 
as well as through the bottom in the usual way. 
Nevertheless we reached the lee of the eastern shore 
without drowning. To avoid the wind we poked 
along so close to the shore and out-running bars that 
we grounded several times. But at last we found 
the river, and said good-bye to the white temple 
from which some Maya priest kept watch over the 
canoes which brought up this stream the quetzal 
feathers for his rites, the plumage of the sacred 
bird from the highlands of Central America. At 
least, Griscom and I said good-bye to Vzgia del Lago. 
Whiting was to maintain his ferry service one day 
more to bring out Spinden and the overdue General 
Vega. (Spinden was to make a last effort to find 
that building with pillars, which he had lost since 


SIOOP IOAO UOT}BIOIOP 9IONT *(,,9aYV'T BY} UO YO}BM OY L,,) O8'T [op VISIA 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 185 


that first afternoon at Muyil. This gives an idea of 
how thick is the bush.) 

As we passed the temple a big bird flew down the 
river. 

“Shoot!” urged Griscom. I fumbled the wet 
gun, shot late, and missed. 

‘‘Too bad,” said the ornithologist, ‘‘that was a 
tiger bittern. I want one. You keep ready now 
and when I see something I want I’ll yell ‘shoot.’”’ 

‘Shoot,’ he called a few minutes later, but I 
saw no mark. Half standing, he could see a low 
flying bird, invisible to me. At last it rose over a 
bush and I fired, at great range. To everybody’s 
surprise the bird fell. 

Whiting stopped the engine, and held the Imp 
against the bank by a root. We found the bird, a 
fine big tiger bittern. It was merely wounded in 
the wing and was a splendid sight as it darted at 
us its six-inch lance of a beak backed by the power 
of a long sinewy neck with the tawny stripes which 
give the bird its name. Again I regretted that my 
moving picture camera was out of order. This had 
refused to function ever since we had reached Muyil, 
in other words, ever since I needed it most. 

Griscom never kills a wounded bird by giving it a 
second shot, or by striking its head with a stick or 
with the barrel of his gun. Any of these common 


186 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


devices of careless hunters would be apt to injure 
the plumage. Griscom’s method is to apply pres- 
sure on each side of the bird’s breast, above its heart. 
A small bird can be killed this way by the use of 
thumb and forefinger alone. But this tiger bittern 
was quite a problem. Its long beak was a really 
dangerous weapon. So I held its head while Gris- 
com applied the fatal grip to its chest with both his 
hands. Even so perhaps three minutes had passed 
and he was nearly exhausted before the film of death 
overspread the savage yellow eye of the great winged 
fisherman. | 

Any hope that the wind was abating which we 
may have had under the shelter of the banks of the 
river was dispelled when we saw the great white- 
topped yellowish waves rolling across the shallow 
salt lagoon. The Imp took this buffeting bravely 
enough, but she had hardly gone ten times her own 
length from the end of the river when the little 
motor began to sputter and miss. The trouble 
was caused by spray falling on the spark plugs. 
These two outboard engines have given us hard 
faithful service, and since we have stopped feeding 
them kerosene and iron filings we have no trouble 
so long as we keep the spark plugs dry. On a wet 
day Gough will often take out the plugs and heat 
them before trying to start the motor. His favorite 


4 
4 
; 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 187 


method is to spill a little kerosene on the Albert’s 
deck and set fire to it, holding the spark plugs in 
the flame. 

In New Orleans I bought rubber jackets to cover 
the plugs with, but we always seem to leave them 
behind in the schooner. 

Whiting now put his rain coat on the end of an 
oar which I held over the motor, which continued 
to run fitfully—not giving the propeller one quarter 
of its full power. Our course did not lie directly 
into the wind. The result was that our bow was 
constantly being blown to starboard and we were 
continually shipping water over the port gunwale. 
Griscom, who was sitting forward and getting the 
full benefit of these douches, kept begging us to 
“head her up into it.” Pulling on an oar with my 
left hand I managed to hold her bow up a little, 
but we dared not run directly into the wind for that 
way lay a wide expanse of shallows. Griscom did 
not know this, and it was hard to explain it to him 
in the steady shout of the wind. 

Gradually the spark plugs dried out under the 
rain coat and the little motor putted with more and 
more confidence. If all continued to go as well as 
this we would get across the wide lagoon ultimately. 
But when we reached the ocean would we find the 
schooner there? This was the question which wor- 


188 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


ried us. There was only one reason to suppose that 
Gough would remain on a lee shore in this blow, and 
that lay in the fact that it might be even more dan- 
gerous for him to attempt to cross the outer bar 
between the reefs than to stay where we had left 
him. We had hit that bar twice coming in, and 
with the surf which must be running there now the 
chances were that the schooner would be let down 
between waves hard enough to break her back. 

But if she had left the anchorage, there would be 
nothing for us to do but camp on the beach until we 
had eaten our few crackers and drunk our bag of 
water. Then, if the schooner had not returned, we 
could avoid starvation by going back to Muyil. 

It was a tense moment as we ran down the little 
inlet towards the sea. If the schooner had not 
moved we would see her masts any moment now over 
the sand bar to port. 

‘‘She’s gone, fellahs,’’ said Griscom, in the bow. 
There could no longer be any doubt about it. Where 
the Albert had been was only an expanse of heaving 
green and white. 

I remembered the thrill I had in reading Treasure 
Island when Jim Hawkins found the Hispaniola 
had slipped her anchor. This was a thrill, too, but 
of a different kind. 

We ran on down the lagoon, scanning the horizon 


2) 


ee ee ee ee oe 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 189 


for a sail, half hoping our boat might be standing 
on and off beyond the reef, waiting to signal to us. 

‘“Why, there she is!”’ exclaimed Whiting. And 
there she was, up the beach half a mile, much nearer 
shore than we had left her. Perilously near shore 
she looked, indeed. But the awning over the fore- 
deck suggested that all was well. They wouldn’t 
let her drag ashore without taking in that awning 
and putting sail on her. 

Now that we had located the schooner the ques- 
tion was, could we reach her? The inner bar was a 
chaos of bursting water. I did not like its expression. 

“What do you think, Whiting, can we make 
a 

‘“‘It’s worse’n it was in my other crossings. But 
let’s run up and have a look at it. Better have the 
oars ready, these spark plugs are still damp.”’ 

Before we knew it we were in the midst of high 
short rollers—we had not realized that such waves 
could carry past the bar. 

“‘T don’t believe we can make it, hadn’t you bet- 
ter turn back?’’ I shouted at Whiting. 

‘Too late,’”’ he yelled, ‘‘we’d capsize in these seas. 
And we might as well spill on the bar where it’s 
shallow as here where it’s deep.”’ 

At that moment the engine stopped. 

‘Pull, for God’s sake, steady and hard,” yelled 


190 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Whiting, half standing in the stern and scanning 
the broken water ahead for a possible spot smoother 
than the rest. 

Over my shoulder I had had a glimpse of great 
green curlers hammering into white smother on the 
bar and I did not think we had a chance of getting 
through. But as Whiting said, we might as well 
sink in shallow water as in deep. 

‘Pull on your port oar hard—HARD! There, 
steady now. I'll steer, you watch your oars, don’t 
catch a crab. Save your strength till we’re in it, 
just pull carefully.” ; 

‘More on the starboard oar now. That’s it. 
Steady. Watch it now, here they come. Now 
GivE HER ALL You’vE Got.”’ | 

A giant wave lifted our bow, seemed to throw us 
back ten feet. It was a miracle that the oars were 
not knocked from my hands. I cursed myself for 
not having inspected Gough’s oars before we sailed. 
These thick nine-foot ash sweeps were much too 
heavy and long to be pulled with only one hand to 
each of them. But I tried to concentrate on Whit- 
ing’s voice as it came blurred through the wind 
from where he crouched in the stern. I pulled till I 
was half blind. 

‘“There, we’re through,” I vaguely heard Gris- 
com say, but didn’t believe my ears. 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE Ig! 


“Atta boy, we’re over,” Whiting was yelling it 
now, “‘take it easy I say, we’re over.” 

Incredible, but true, we were over. The waves 
were no longer breaking. ‘They were huger than ever 
but they were longer, far enough apart so that we 
could turn safely and run almost before the wind to 
the schooner. 

Over my shoulder I saw McClurg aiming his little 
movie camera at us. 

He laughed till he had to sit down from the 
weakness of it when we clambered aboard the 
schooner. 

“Whiting’s not so bad,’”’ he managed to say to me 
finally, ‘‘he’s been kept half civilized by his trips to 
the schooner. But you and Griscom, I’ve seen some 
beachcombers in my time but, man, you two win the 
celluloid binoculars.” . 

At that Griscom and I became rather jealous of 
each other, he claiming that he looked the bigger 
bum, and I upholding my own claims. So they lined 
us up on deck and had a ‘‘Biggest Bum Contest,” 
with McClurg, Whiting and Gough as self-appointed 
judges. By unanimous vote Griscom was declared 
the biggest bum on the schooner. 

Griscom’s shirt was torn, his hunting coat and 
khaki breeches were stained with mud and the 
blood of his birds. My only garment was the in- 


192 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


famous trousers, now unfortunately lent a certain 
respectability by a belt I had found in the bottom 
of my duffle bag just before leaving Muyil. Even 
so, the trousers were disreputable enough, and had 
I been similarly clad above the waist I might have 
given the bird man a closer contest. But where I 
was naked the ocean had washed me clean. And 
cleanliness does not become a bum. : 

I said something to this effect, but McClurg cut 
me short: 

‘‘No, Mason,”’ said he, ‘‘no matter what you wore 
you wouldn’t have won. You’ve been in the bush 
a day longer than Griscom and your whiskers don’t 
compare with his. It’s his Weary-Willy stubble and 
that hobo grin of his which would always make him 
the bum of this ship. You might just as well shave 
and be comfortable.”’ 

McClurg does not seem to have been bored by 
his week alone with the crew. He has shot several 
birds valuable to Griscom, and their skins were pre- 
served for the American Museum of Natural His- 
tory by the efforts of Gough and Belize John, who 
is quite an adept with the knife now. In Delirium 
Tremens McClurg has explored the maze of lagoons 
beyond the inner bar and he has proved the truth 
of what we had been told by fishermen about the 
long strip of land whose northern end is a mile 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 193 


south of us now and whose southern end is Allen 
Point, on Ascension Bay. That is to say, McClurg 
has established the fact that this is an island, not 
a promontory as is indicated on U. S. Navy chart 
number 966. Part of the water which makes it an 
island is a mere narrow lagoon, hardly a foot deep 
in places, nevertheless it 7s an island and should be 
so drawn on future charts. 

There have been other events to prevent ennuz 
overpowering the men on the schooner. One night 
a lantern, hung too high in our cabin, set fire to the 
deck above it. And night before last Gough was 
awakened by the roar of the surf on the beach only 
fifty yards from his ear. The schooner had dragged 
her anchor. 

There were several nasty seconds, vividly de- 
scribed to us by McClurg, before they got one engine 
going just in the nick of time. ‘The wind was blow- 
ing so hard that all this motor could do was to hold 
the boat even. They hung there on the foaming 
brink of destruction for another five minutes before 
the engineers could start the second engine. It 
was still dark, and they dared not try to find the 
opening in the reef. Indeed they had seen so many 
coral heads by day that they dared not even look 
for their former anchorage. When they had hauled 
offshore two or three hundred yards they let go both 


194. SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


anchors, which luckily held. This is why we did not 
find the schooner where we had left her. 

In the confusion of hauling off the beach someone 
upset a pail of spider crabs which Gough had caught 
for bait. Several of the barefooted sailors have been 
nipped by the vicious little creatures, and we have 
been warned to be on the lookout for them. Fleas 
are also aboard, for which McClurg blames the trip 
to Santa Cruz de Bravo, but admits the laundress 
at Vigia Chico may be responsible. With Spinden’s 
ligard still at large the schooner is no place for a 
nervous woman. As for the dead lizards, which 
Spinden pickled in formaldehyde, they had to be 
thrown overboard. The trouble was too little for- 
maldehyde and too much lizard. 

As I said before this is Wednesday, six days since 
we went up to Muyil. Whiting ran his ferry for 
the last time today and brought out Spinden and 
General Juan Vega, with a dark, silent retainer of 
that Potentate. 

I have never seen a less military looking man who 
was called ‘‘General,’’ and I suspect the title is 
somewhat exaggerated—even according to Mexican 
standards. Yet there is no doubt that Vega is a 
power among the Indians, whether he is really sec- 
ond in command to General May as Castillo says or 
not. 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 195 


Like most of the men on this coast he is thin. He 
has an ingratiating smile, an almost timid look, or 
it would be timid if there were not a certain self- 
confident slyness in it. He is not an Indian by 
birth but a Mexican who was kidnapped in boyhood 
by the Indians. He rose to be a leader of his abduc- 
tors by virtue of his naked wits, so doubtless the 
sly look was well earned. 

He confirms something that Castillo told us, 
namely, that there are ruins on the mainland north 
of Tulum at places called Paalmul and Xkaret. No 
ruins by these names are on archeological maps and 
we are eager to cat anchor and sail north. But 
the wind keeps us behind the reef tonight. 

Only this morning Spinden found the building with 
pillars which he “‘lost’”’ after his first glimpse of it. 
The queer thing was that Castillo did not seem to 
remember having shown it to Spinden that first 
afternoon, and even said that Spinden was dream- 
ing. Is there something which makes Castillo 
regret his part as our guide about the ruins? 

There may well be for Juan Vega imparts the inter- 
esting news that his Indians held a council of war 
when they heard that we were approaching Muyil. 
One party was for ejecting us at any cost before our 
presence had contaminated the shrines of ‘“‘the 
Ancients,’’ But others, more accustomed to the 


196 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


ways of white men through the educating influences 
of the chicle traffic, voted not to molest us so long 
as we treated the ruins with respect, destroyed 
nothing and carried nothing away. How glad I 
am that I followed Spinden’s advice not to carry 
off a few dusty shards I found in that subterranean 
temple! 

Vega makes a great point of declaring that he 
was the leader of the faction which prevailed upon 
the belligerent Indians not to attack us. It is obvi- 
ous that he considers this well worth his passage to 
Cozumel, which indeed it is, a hundred thousand 
times over. 

For whatever may happen to the Expedition now 
it has attained its chief objective. Our contention 
that ruins unseen by scientists could be found within 
a few miles of the east coast of Yucatan has been 
proved sound. Whatever ruins we may find from 
now on will be so much to the good, so much vel-— 
vet. There is no more excuse for lying awake 
nights wondering if the plan of the Expedition was 
not just a romantic dream. 

Altogether we found twelve temples or ceremonial 
buildings at Muyil, and mounds too numerous to 
count where others had crumbled. In his excur- 
sions through the big bush Griscom found these 
traces of architectural decay over a wide circumfer- 


A LOST TRADE ROUTE 197 


ence about the narrow area where we worked. 
Muyil deserves much further study. If only the 
Mexican Government would permit us to come down 
another year and excavate, or would send its own 
men to do so! 

As Spinden and I sit over his folding table in the 
schooner’s hold and study the plans of buildings we 
drew and the notes we made the significance of our 
discovery constantly grows. The ruins are import- 
ant merely as evidence of the high skill in the paint- 
ing and carving of stone possessed by the race which 
once flourished here. They are even more import- 
ant because they contain two new features in Maya 
architecture, the use of tandem pillars and the stone 
cupola on the roof of El Castillo. But they are most 
important because of the testimony of much evi- 
dence, some direct and some indirect, that Muyil was 
once an important post on a great Maya trade route. 

Spinden’s expedition to Colombia several years 
ago convinced him that the pearls and emeralds 
found in caches of Maya treasure reached Yucatan 
from the region of the present Colombia, that is, a 
part of South America as far distant from Yucatan 
as New York is from Chicago. It has also been 
established that the turquoise of the Mayas traveled 
an even greater distance than the pearls, for the 
turquoise came from what is now New Mexico. 


198 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Muyil’s buildings are in the style of a solid, com- 
mercial town. Muyil’s location is the location of a 
seaport, speaking from the point of view of shoal 
draft trading canoes. We believe that that river 
whose bends and snags Whiting now knows by heart 
and that canal connecting the two lakes east of 
the main group of ruins were once links in a great 
commercial system of waterways and land routes 
which existed 700 or 800 years before the building 
of the Lincoln Highway and the Panama Canal. 


CHAPTER IX 
THE CITY OF THE DAWN 


DIEGO VELASQUEZ, Governor of Cuba, needed 
slaves to work the mines of that island. He com- 
missioned Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba to go 
and get them from the islands called the Guanajos 
(now the Bay Islands of Honduras), which had been 
discovered by Columbus on his fourth and last 
voyage in 1502. (Roatan, the home of Captain 
Gough, is one of these islands.) 

Hernandez de Cordoba sailed from Santiago de 
Cuba on February 8, 1517. The Spanish historian, 
Gomara, tells how he reached not his destination 
but 


‘‘a country hitherto unknown and unseen by our 
people, where he found salt-pits, at a point which 
he named Las Mugeres (Women), because he there 
discovered stone towers and chapels, covered with 
wood and straw, in which were arranged in order 
several idols resembling women. The Spaniards 
were astonished, for the first time to see strong edi- 
fices, which had not as yet been discovered, and also 


199 


200 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


to perceive that the inhabitants were so richly and 
tastefully clothed. They wore shirts and cloaks of 
white and colored cotton, their head dress consisted 
of feathers, their ears were enriched with ear-drops 
and jewels of gold and silver. The women had 
their faces and breasts concealed. Hernandez did 
not stop there, but . . . a little further on they 
(the Spaniards) found other men, of whom they 
inquired the name of the large town close by. They 
answered, ‘Tectatan, Tectatan,’ which means ‘I 
do not understand’; from this the Spaniards thought 
that this was the name of the town, and, corrupting. - 
the word have ever since called it ‘Yucatan.’”’ 


Not the town only, whose identity has long been 
lost, but that whole land has ever since been called 
Yucatan. And, it is worth remembering that for 
some time after Cordoba’s cruise the Spaniards 
thought of Yucatan as an island, around which they 
hoped to find a passage to the rich Indies they were 
always seeking. 

Lust for gold was the motive which led to all the 
Spanish discoveries. The dissemination of Chris- 
tianity was always a later and secondary interest. 

The earrings and other trinkets which Cordoba 
saw encouraged the avaricious hopes of the Span- 
iards. <A year later Juan de Grijalva sailed his four 
ships from Cuba to Cozumel Island, off the east coast 
of Yucatan. How the imagination strains to con- 


{ 


THE CITY OF THE DAWN 201 


jure up a picture of these first meetings between the 
mechanical, warlike civilization of Europe and the 
religious and artistic culture of ancient America! 

To modern eyes such vessels as Grijalva had would 
seem absurdly high for their length and dangerously 
clumsy. No wonder the current which races north- 
ward between Cozumel and the mainland hampered 
navigation in such unwieldy craft! 

Grijalva managed at last to reach the south end 
of the island, where he anchored. Landing, he 
fell on his knees and thanked God for giving this 
island to Spain. He then performed the usual 
solemn annexation ceremonies, while the Indians 
looked on in amazement. Not realizing that he 
was being robbed of his homeland the Indian Cacique 
presented Grijalva with a jar of honey. The natives 
crowded around the Europeans, respectfully touch- 
ing their bright weapons, and marveling at their 
thick beards. 

The Spaniards were afraid to eat the food which 
the Indians gave them, whereupon the generous 
natives produced cotton shirts and jewels. Cotton, 
one of the New World’s most valuable gifts to the 
Old, was apparently unappreciated at first. And 
had the Europeans realized that these jewels had 
been brought in Maya trading canoes from richer 
lands to the south and north they might have left 


202 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


this country in peace a few years longer. As it was 
they blustered along the coast, ‘‘impressed,’’ as 
Prescott says, ‘‘with the evidences of a higher civ- 
ilization, especially in the architecture,’ and yet 
arrogantly breaking the native idols or pitching 
them into the sea until the whole country rose 
against the intruders. As American Indians went, 
the Mayas seem to have been a rather. peaceful 
people. But no nation with any self-respect would 
long tolerate this sort of bullying. 

It was largely because Europe had gone ahead of 
America in mechanics that the Spaniards were able 
to win the bloody struggle which followed. Scien- 
tists believe that the Mayas had scarcely any metal 
tools. They had no beasts of burden, and the lime- 
stone blocks of ‘‘the very large houses, well built of 
stone and plaster,’’ which the sailing master of 
Grijalva reported, had been cut with stone tools 
and put in place by man-power alone. It was 
because this power was almost unlimited and 
directed by intelligent rulers under a sort of feudal 
system that the Mayas had been able to build the 
great white cities which astounded the Spaniards. 

But the Indians had nothing so deadly in battle 
as the guns of the Europeans. The bullets from 
these piercedthe tortoise-shell shields of the natives, 
while the flint-headed arrows and spears of the In- 


THE CITY OF THE DAWN 203 


dians were turned by the steel mail of the Castillians. 

Victory breeds in the victor contempt for the 
vanquished. Years passed after the first conquest 
before Europeans began to realize that the already 
crumbling civilization which had been given its 
death blow by the soldiers of Spain had possessed 
certain cultural achievements which put the savants 
of Europe to the blush, such as the intricate and 
accurate calendar which the Maya priests had made 
by long vigils in which the naked eye had no me- 
chanical aids. 

Before the Conquest had been begun, however, 
on May 7, 1518, to be exact, the four ships of Juan 
de Grijalva sailed to the mainland opposite Cozumel 
Island and turned southward exploring the coast. 
Juan Diaz, their sailing master, described their passing 


‘“‘three large towns separated from each other by 
about 2 miles. There were many houses of stone, 
very tall towers, and buildings covered with straw. 

. We followed the shore day and night, and 
the next day towards sunset we perceived a city or 
town so large, that Seville would not have seemed 
more considerable nor better; one saw there a very 
large tower; on the shore was a great throng of In- 
dians, who bore two standards which they raised 
and lowered to signal us to approach them; the com- 
mander did not wish it. Thesame day wecame to a 


204. SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


beach near which was the highest tower we had 
seen and one discerned a very considerable town; 
the country was watered by many rivers; we dis- 
covered a bay so large that a fleet might enter. It 
was lined with wooden buildings set up by fisher- 
men.”’ 


The day the Spaniards reached this bay was 
May 13, which happened to be Ascension Day that 
year. So the bay was named Ascension Bay. The 
Spaniards were mistaken about the ‘‘many rivers.’’ 
They may have sent a small boat far enough in to 
see the stream leading to Muyil, but that is the only 
river we have seen along this coast. No doubt 
many of the salt lagoons and sluggish backwaters 
of bays were mistaken by the discoverers for rivers. 

Modern archeologists are inclined to agree that 
the city compared to Seville was probably what is 
now the conspicuous group of ruins called Tulum 
(or Tuloom or Tuluum, according to various arche- 
ologists. The second spelling most accurately indi- 
cates the pronunciation to an American, but I have 
accepted the first, for reasons which I need not go 
into here). What of the ‘‘three large towns sep- 
arated from each other by about 2 miles’? Were 
any of them Xkaret, Paalmul, Chakalal or Acomal, 
where Indians report to us ruins still standing which 
have not been visited by archzologists? 


THE CITY OF THE DAWN 205 


There must be something left of these ‘‘large 
towns’’ we told each other, as our schooner retraced 
the course of Grijalva’s caravels and approached 
Tulum from the south. 

I was in the hold reading John Lloyd Stephens’ 
account of the Castillo at Tulum: 


“It rises on the brink of a high, broken, precip- 
itous cliff, commanding a magnificent ocean view, 
and a picturesque line of coast, being itself visible 
from a great distance at sea.’’ 


‘“‘Come up,”’ called Griscom, “‘we can see Tulum.”’ 

We were only an hour and a half out of Boca de 
Paila, and I hardly believed him. Much as I have 
read about the conspicuous location of these ruins 
I did not realize how the square high center of the 
Castillo, that ‘‘very large tower’’ of Juan Diaz, 
stands out as a mark to distant ships. We must 
have been ten or twelve miles from it at this time, 
but could see it plainly with the naked eye. 

The gentle north wind which brought a bright day 
and high visibility also produced a calm sea under 
the cliff which made landing easy for us. Morley 
and Lothrop told us that we should have to jump 
overboard a few feet from shore and be ‘“‘spewed 
up to the beach by the sea,’’ as was their experience. 
But this day was made to order. Our two boats 


206 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


were able to land on a thin strip of white beach just 
south of the Castillo. From here a steep gulley 
ran to the top of the forty-foot limestone cliff, 
which in many other places is impossible to climb. 

Most of the eastern coast of Yucatan is a low, 
monotonous sandy shelf covered with scrub palms. 
Tulum is placed on the highest piece of land between 
Cape Catoche and Chetumal Bay. For location 
few cities, ancient or modern, can surpass it. The 
name means ‘‘Fortress.’’ The ancient name, Zama 
means ‘‘City of the Dawn.” Both appellations 
are fitting, although perhaps the present one is the 
best. This old Maya metropolis does not face the 
dawn, but turns her back on the east. The build- 
ers deliberately chose to face away from the finest 
ocean view on the whole coast. It was probably 
for purposes of defense that they made the back of 
the two wings and the central tower of the Castillo 
of solid masonry and placed all their doors on the 
other side facing an extensive ceremonial plaza 
crowded with buildings of religious purpose. For 
the same reason they built a wall fifteen to twenty 
feet high and almost as thick about the three sides 
of the city not protected by the jagged and pitted 
limestone cliff. 

In the archives of Spanish history no one has found 
any account of the subjugation of Tulum, although 


ezvyjd [eruoute1090 
B a0vJ 0} ULJLINZ JO JSvOd O[OYM OY} WO MOIA ysSaUY oy} UO YORG Sj suIN} uININY Jo afdurey Joryo OL 


THE CITY OF THE DAWN 207 


the conquest swept down this whole coast. After 
the account of Diaz the world heard nothing of ‘‘the 
City of the Dawn”’ until 1840 when one Juan Pio 
Perez mentioned it as having been seen by a trav- 
eler named Galvez. The place was first given some- 
thing like the reputation it deserves by the writ- 
ings of Stephens and the drawings of his companion 
Catherwood, made in 1842. Then the Indian wars 
of 1848-50 plunged Tulum back into its former iso- 
lation. In 1895 the Allison V. Armour Expedition 
was prevented from landing by fear of the hostile 
Indians but the yacht of that party approached 
close enough for Mr. W. H. Holmes to make two 
excellent sketches. Danger from the same source 
obliged Messrs. Howe and Parmelee to leave after 
a two-day visit in 1911. Morley and Nusbaum 
made a daring visit in a tiny dory in 1913 and after 
being ‘‘spewed onto the beach”’ in the usual manner 
spent a few hours in a vain search for fragments of 
a stela found by Stephens and buried in the sand by 
Howe and Parmelee for safekeeping. In 1916 Mor- 
ley and Gann managed to find some of these frag- 
ments and re-buried them. In 1918 Morley, Gann 
and John Held, Jr., recovered these pieces of stone 
and found some additional pieces of the original stela. 

If these stones could speak what a story could 
they tell! Indeed, a very readable romance might 


208 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


be woven about their history since Stephens found 
them, the bare bones of which I have given above. 
The date on this stela is unquestionably an early 
one and the reading of it has been the subject of a 
very pretty archeological controversy. Stephens 
lived before any of the glyphs had been deciphered. 
Howe read the date on the front of the stone as cor- 
responding to 304 A.D. of the Christian count. Gann 
and Morley read this date as 305 A.D., but they de- 
cided it referred to some event previous to the erec- 
tion of the monument. They were influenced to this 
decision, explains Gann, by the fact that ‘“we know 
from a number of historical sources that Tuluum 
and Chichen Itza were not founded till towards the 
end of the sixth century of our era by Maya from 
Bacalal (Bacalar), led by their Priest-Chief Itz- 
amna.’’ The contemporaneous date of the stela 
Gann and Morley place at 699 A.D. 

Lothrop, who studied Tulum for the Carnegie 
Institution and who is now attached to the Museum 
of the American Indian in New York, thinks that 
Morley and Gann are wrong, both in their reading of 
the date and in their interpretation of Maya history. 
He says, 


‘The most probable date... is 442 AD. 
(Professor H. M. Tozzer and Dr. H. J. Spinden agree 


THE CITY OF THE DAWN 209 


with the writer on this point). This is given addi- 
tional weight because it so closely accords with the 
traditional date of the colonization of the east coast as 
recorded in the books of Chilam Balam.”’ 


The Books of Chilam Balam are records dating 
from after the Spanish Conquest written by natives 
in the Maya tongue but in Spanish characters. 

This archeological debate is especially interest- 
ing because it concerns the age of Tulum. I must 
say that Lothrop’s argument—which I have barely 
sketched—seems convincing to me and that Gann 
seems to display unwarranted assurance when he 
says he “knows” that Tulum was not founded 
until ‘‘towards the end of the sixth century.”’ Quien 
sabe? 

Sickness and rum have decimated the Indians who 
repelled previous expeditions to the Seville of the 
Caribbean. Yet the last survivors of the tribe 
which may virtually disappear within a few dec- 
ades still watch the secret shrines of their fore- 
fathers, and still worship there. On entering the 
Castillo we found the ashes of recently burned copal 
(gum incense). And we had hardly made this dis- 
covery when we saw an Indian running down a path 
toward us. He was a wizened little fellow, and there 
was a sort of unearthly obscenity in the grin with 


210 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


which he eyed us. Indeed he might have been a 
messenger of one of the lesser demons of the old 
religion. He said little, and that we could not 
understand, but it was obvious that he was watching 
to see that we committed no acts of vandalism. 

A few minutes later appeared two more Indians, 
a dirty young man and a dried up ancient with a 
flowered blouse such as an American woman might 
wear, and a great gold earring in his left ear. We 
saw similar decorations in the ears of the priests at 
Santa Cruz de Bravo. The old man was ‘‘General”’ 
Paulino Kamaal, chief of the Tulum Indians, a 
branch of the people governed by General May. 
The youth was his son, the heir apparent to the 
Tulum throne. They lived in thatched huts some 
distance from the ruins. 

They invited themselves to lunch with us on the 
schooner. When we boarded the ship there was a 
dramatic meeting between this old rogue, Kamaal, 
and Juan Vega. Fora few minutes the air was thick 
with Maya ejaculations. At length Kamaal and 
Vega accepted our rum and cigarets and Vega 
explained the meaning of the pow-wow. It seems 
that thirty-five years ago a boat containing Vega, 
his father, and several other Mexicans reached 
Tulum from Cozumel. It was attacked by the 
Indians, who killed everyone in the boat but Vega, 


sojovjoeds 
(Jo 38) UOS SIFT *[eUIVRD OUTINe ,,[e1ouey,, ‘SUBIPU] UMN], oY} JO Joryo pasurs-1ve oy 


6, 3UI}IT A Pp2}9A09 


THE CITY OF THE DAWN 211 


then a small boy. He was adopted as I have al- 
ready related. But what interested us and Vega 
is that he recognized Kamaal as a member of the 
party which had killed his father. The old Tulum 
chief admitted his part in the massacre without the 
slightest embarrassment, indeed with obvious pride. 
His manner was of one who might be saying, ‘‘Yes, 
I remember how I walloped you at tennis thirty-five 
years ago.” 

McClurg does not seem to appreciate the import- 
ance of cultivating the good-will of these local jefes, 
rascals and cut-throats as many of them doubtless 
are. His frank disgust each time we bring a tatter- 
demalion ‘“‘General’’ aboard is amusing to watch. 
I was afraid there might be trouble when he ignored 
the dirty hand which old Kamaal insisted on offering 
him, but the tactful Gough pushed a plate of beans 
into the old Indian’s paw and a delicate situation 
was averted. 

Kamaal’s eyes glow like old embers. When he had 
finished his meal he thanked us briefly, but warmly. 
Then he rattled off a string of gutturals with a mis- 
chievous side glance at Vega. 

“What did he say?”’ I asked that genial fellow. 

“‘He says that thirty or even fifteen years ago you 
could not have landed here. You would have been 
surrounded by his people, all strong young warriors. 


212 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


He says those good days have gone, but he is glad 
to meet you, even under these conditions.” 

I started one of the Johnsons and took ashore 

the ‘‘heir apparent’’ and his father, looking like an 
old woman with his flowered shirt, his great earring, 
and his wide straw hat pulled down to his shrewd, 
vital eyes. Before they took the trail north toward 
the ruins of Tancah they asked in the sign language 
for more cigarets. I gave them the only package 
in my pocket, and a small bottle of Woolworth per- 
fume. This last gift delighted the old man. He 
directed his son to empty at my feet a cloth sling 
containing about a dozen oranges. 
- Someone aboard the schooner had told this poten- 
tate that we should be returning to Tulum in about 
ten days. As we parted he mustered his only Span- 
ish, or the only Spanish he had uttered to us: 

‘‘Diez dias—con licor.”’ 

By the way he rubbed his stomach I took this to 
be the expression of a gentle command that we should 
return in ten days, with plenty of rum. 

Tulum has perhaps more wall paintings than any 
Maya city known. After lunch Spinden was copy- 
ing some of these in the Temple of the Frescoes and 
I was admiring the outline of that small but lovely 
building when two young Mexicans approached. 
One was José Sauri, Agent of the Department of 


THE CITY OF THE DAWN 213 


Anthropology of the Mexican Ministry of Public 
Education. By order of the Government he had 
come here from Cozumel to meet us, and to see that 
we committed no injury upon the ruins. 

Sauri asked us to take him and his father’s sloop 
back to Cozumel. So now we are towing the sloop, 
steered by an old sailor friend of Sauri’s who does 
not seem to mind the gaseous fumes which pour 
upon his grizzled head from the Albert's twin ex- 
hausts. And Sauri sits in our midst with our other 
two ‘‘deck passengers,” Juan Vega and his silent, 
moustached retainer. 

This has been a day to remember. ‘Tulum is one 
of the wonders of the world. It has not quite the 
varied splendor, the architectural richness of Uxmal 
and Chichen Itza, the two best known ruined cities in 
Yucatan. But frowning from its desolate and for- 
midable cliff it leaves an impression of stern majesty 
which those riper centers of the Maya Renaissance 
could never have produced, even in their prime. 
No Maya building has ever moved me so much as 
that little Temple of the Frescoes, with the four 
columns of its main entrance and the flaring con- 
cave sides of its second story—those leaping lines 
of a Peking roof. Spinden laughs at me and says it 
is something of a hodge-podge. He is right. But 
although it suggests Greek architecture below and 


214. SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Chinese above it remains for me a piece of sheer 
beauty in white stone. 

With night has come a stiff east wind. I am 
wearing flannel under a waterproof shirt. But Vega, 
beside me, seems comfortable in his thin pyjamas. 
He is an interesting character, a mixture of business 
man, mountebank, diplomat and seer. He is tell- 
ing me about the social usages and customs among 
the people he rules, trying to get my opinion of them 
without giving me his. He is especially concerned 
with marital infidelity and divorce, but for the 
life of me I cannot learn his own convictions on these 
subjects. Which is partly due to my ignorance of 
Spanish. Yet I can sense that he is constantly 
retreating behind jokes and light parsiflage, watch- 
ing me like a hawk all the while. | 

Gough is keeping a sharp lookout for one of the 
lighthouses on Cozumel. Whiting comes forward 
and remarks to me that when he was aloft just be- 
fore dark he found Spinden’s lizard on the port main 
shroud, close to the cross trees. 

‘‘T’d have shot it, but I was afraid of cutting the 
shroud.”’ 3 

Vega suggests putting a man on watch at the foot 
of the shroud to catch the creature if it comes down. 

McClurg comes forward and says that at last he 
has discovered the schooner’s compass. It is hidden 


voile vARIAL O[OYM OY} UT SsuTjUIed SoU oY} JO OUIOS SUIY}UOD S90dSeT,y oY} Jo ofdway sunny 


wees, 


THE CITY OF THE DAWN 215 


away in the engine room, and apparently is never 
consulted by the skipper of this good mud boat. 

That worthy now sights the light of San Miguel, 
chief port of Cozumel, a town of some 1500 people, 
and our destination tonight. 

Although we are under the lee of the island the 
wind is rising, and the boat is rocking heavily. 
Spinden seeks his cot in the hold with a groan. The 
cold has already driven everyone else below but 
Vega, the Captain, the helmsman and me. 

Now several lights are visible at each side of the 
high lamp which warns mariners of the proximity of 
San Miguel. 

For the ninth or tenth time Vega remarks: 

‘“‘Among my people we punish infidelity by beat- 
ing the woman on the neck and the man on the 
buttocks. Do you approve of that?”’ 

For the ninth or tenth time I reply laboriously 
that the distinction indicates an interesting sense of 
chivalry but that both punishments seem commend- 
able to an Anglo-Saxon sociologist. Why not try 
them in New York? 

“‘Ah, but your men don’t have to have a woman 
to cook for them. You can get a divorce and eat 
in a restaurant. You are lucky.” 

The Albert slides between the dim white shapes 
of chicle schooners. Someone on the largest throws 


216 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


a beam on us from an electric flashlight. Now, fora 
little. while we shall be in comparative civilization. 
Tomorrow we can send off radios. And perhaps we 
can buy phonograph needles, which we forgot to 
get in Belize. 


CHAPTER X 
THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 


WE were in Cozumel four days. I saw nothing of 
it but the grassy streets of San Miguel, being cooped 
up in a rented room while I wrote accounts of our 
finds for the New York Times, which generously 
financed the expedition. 

Everyone sent messages to relatives at home by 
the Mexican radio. Griscom engaged a score of 
small boys to hunt birds and already has established 
the fact that several of the eighteen or twenty spe- 
cies reported to be peculiar to this island do actually 
exist here. 

Cozumel is like a sheep town at the end of the 
shearing season. Most of the chicleros have come 
out of the bush, and San Miguel is the Mecca where 
they like to spend in a few weeks debaucheries the 
proceeds of months of toil. 

McClurg and Whiting and I went to a fiesta in 
the local movie house, bar-room and dance hall. 


Everyone in Cozumel who amounts to anything was 
217 


218 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


there, except our friend, Adolfo Perez, the chicle 
magnate, who amounts to too much. 

First they crowned a ‘‘Queen of Love and Beauty,”’ 
who had to sit on a throne beside the stage through 
the rest of the proceedings and look self-conscious, 
the only expression on her otherwise uninteresting 
face. They had probably picked her as a beauty 
because she was of lighter complexion than most 
of them, for the Mexicans, like the Japanese, seem 
to prefer blondes. When she had been selected a 
series of youths of local importance read long odes 
and prose poems which they had written in her 
honor. This tedious affair was succeeded by ama- 
teur theatricals which were quite well done and very 
amusing. 

The audience was stiffly dressed, but was kindly 
in mien and frank in its manners. 

Between the acts I felt a sudden warm dampness 
on my left shin, which I had stretched under the 
seat before me. The woman in that seat had 
brought a baby with her. I warned Whiting, who 
warned McClurg beyond him. McClurg’s mirth was 
so conspicuous that we became the object of many 
stares. 

‘‘What’s the matter with you?” I reproved, 
‘‘remember you were once a baby, they happen 
in the best of families.” 


q 
| 
| 
: 
| 
. 
: 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 219 


“Yes,” he managed to say, between spasms of 
amusement, ‘“‘but the baby is on the mother’s 
breast.”’ 

We met a man in San Miguel named Ramon Coro- 
nado who said he could take us to two pyramidal 
temples in the interior of the island. From his 
description they do not seem to be among the ruins 
found by previous expeditions. The bush of Cozu- 
mel is so thick and undisturbed by man that it is 
quite possible there are ‘‘new’’ ruins here. But 
Adolfo Perez told us that he has heard Gann 
is coming down this coast soon in a schooner, explor- 
ing the edge of the mainland. We therefore de- 
cided to postpone Coronado’s temples until we had 
made an effort to find the ruins we have heard of at 
Xkaret, Paalmul, Acomal, and more recently, at 
Chakalal and Inah. A handsome fisherman with a 
piratical moustache whose name is Silverio Castillo, 
was engaged to pilot us along the mainland shore. 
We told him we wanted to go first to whichever of 
these places was most southerly, and then work north- 
ward. 

**'Si,”" said he, ‘‘Paalmul.’’ 

‘‘Oh, then, Paalmul is south of Acomal’? Yester- 
day you said it was the other way around.” 

‘‘No, Paalmul is most to the south.”’ 

“And Xkaret is north of Acomal?”’ 


220 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


“‘Xkaret is south of Paalmul.”’ 

‘“Then, hombre, go to Xkaret first, of course.”’ 

‘Sz,’ said Silverio dutifully, and his handsome 
brown face resumed its usual expression of ennui. 
Either he knew nothing of any of the places we had 
engaged him to show us or he thought we were so 
crazy that it was hopeless for him to attempt to 
understand our wishes. Like the other mariners of 
this coast whom we have met he knows nothing of 
compass let alone barometer. He uses his eyes and 
his memory and generally arrives somewhere. 

After pointing in a direction several degrees south 
of southwest and explaining that that was where 
Inah lay and that there we would go, he put the 
schooner on a course only one-half degree south of 
west and held that course till he was close to the 
mainland opposite San Miguel. When I was tact- 
less enough to ask why he did this he explained it 
was to avoid the current which swept northward and 
which was stronger midway between Cozumel and 
the mainland than close to the latter. 

But probably McClurg’s explanation of our pilot’s 
course was the right one. 

‘“‘Don’t you see,’ said McClurg, ‘‘he hasn’t the 
slightest idea where to go, and he thinks if he gets 
near enough to the mainland he may see something 
which will give him his bearings.” 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 221 


Perhaps the native pilots used by the early Span- 
ish discoverers were as uncertain as Silverio Cas- 
tillo. At any rate, the accounts of the places those 
explorers visited on the east coast of Yucatan are 
maddeningly vague. But the references to towns 
opposite the island of Cozumel are so persistent 
that we were sailing in high hopes of finding some- 
thing worth while. — 

Luck seemed to be with us in regard to weather. 
The wind was northerly again, and that meant 
that we should find a lee under the mainland, which 
takes quite a turn to the eastward here, and that 
our two small boats could land on the beach in 
comparative safety. The norther had been blow- 
ing long enough to kill the prevailing easterly swell 
and we were now close enough ashore to see that 
only a small surf was breaking on the short patches 
of white sand which relieved the monotonous hos- 
tility of jagged coastline (this shore is mostly the 
saw edge of a former coral reef, rising as abruptly as 
a Connecticut stone wall). 

A little to the right of our bow were several 
thatch-roofed native houses. Castillo said this 
was the town of Playa Carmen, where an expedi- 
tion of the Carnegie Institution had found ruins a 
few years ago. About a mile and a half south of 
this was a single native house. 


222 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


“‘That’s Inah,” said our pilot, straightening his 
well made body under its simple covering of blue 
flannel shirt and white duck trousers. (Later he 
was to announce ‘‘Inah”’ again opposite a spot some 
four and a half miles south of this. We have never 
learned which place he ultimately decided should 
bear this name.) He swung our bow toward the 
lone hut. When we were within some three hun- 
dred yards of the shore he gave the wheel another 
twirl and kept the schooner parallel to the thin, 
white ribbon of surf. 

This seemed an ideal time for Whiting to climb 
the mainmast with our most powerful binoculars 
strapped about him. Several wooded mounds along 
the shore looked worth inspecting. But, alas, the 
outline of trees on a natural knoll and the outline 
of trees growing from the roof of a ruin are annoy- 
ingly similar. Whiting soon descended from the 
maintop. , 

‘“‘Breakfast ready,’’ announced the cook’s assist- 
ant, who calls every meal breakfast. Then several 
things happened in rapid succession. 1 had taken 
the binoculars from Whiting, and about a mile 
ahead, and close to the water’s edge, I saw a small 
ruin. Three other pairs of glasses were brought to 
bear and verified my analysis. ‘The engineer coaxed 
a few extra ounces of power from the twin motors, 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 223 


and soon with the naked eye it was evident that the 
ruin was a Maya temple, not large but well pre- 
served. As the ship ran in closer to anchor the big- 
gest barracuda which we have yet seen affixed him- 
self to McClurg’s lucky green line which constantly 
trails behind the Albert. Our two San Blas Indians 
let out whoops of hysterical delight. A different 
whoop came from me standing on the roof of the 
house over the engine room. Spinden’s lizard had 
just dropped from the mainmast head to my foot. 

Now the schooner was running into the wind with 
sails shivering and engines sputtering. Half of us 
were shouting advice to the two Indians engaged in 
landing the big barracuda and the rest of us were 
pursuing the lizard till a lucky kick tumbled him 
- overboard—whence he swam ashore, no doubt the 
most traveled lizard in Central America. 

We hurried through lunch, discussing the temple 
on the rocky shore. It may have been one of those 
coastal buildings apparently seen from a distance 
by Stephens on his way to or from Tulum about 
eighty-five years ago, but which a heavy sea pre- 
vented him from visiting. It may have been seen 
more recently by an expedition of the Carnegie 
Institution which adverse weather similarly kept 
from a first-hand examination of certain buildings 
sighted along the shore. 


224 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


When we landed in our tenders we found the 
temple as well preserved as it had appeared at a 
distance. It was the smallish type of temple on a 
low raised platform so common on this east coast, 
being twenty-one feet four inches long, fifteen feet 
eight inches broad, and ten feet three inches high 
—all outside measurements. Three Indians who 
arrived just as we were beginning to measure it told 
us it was called ‘‘Kanakewik.” It proved to be 
important chiefly as an outpost of other buildings 
less than half a mile away in the bush. To these 
we were now conducted by the leader of the three 
Indians, a sturdy fellow with a decisive manner 
who announced in a robust voice that his name was 
Agapito Katzim. 

While some of us went south along the beach with 
Katzim others followed by water in the two dinghies. 
Within perhaps three hundred yards we found a 
lovely little cove, a mere tuck in the rough shore 
with a native hut mirrored in the clear water at 
the upper end. A few feet beyond the end of this 
cove we came upon eight buildings arranged in a 
plaza formation. Most of them were well pre- 
served and there were traces of painting around the 
characteristic inset lintels of nearly all of them. And 
projecting from the front wall of one was a somewhat 
damaged carved stone representing the head of a 


yoIVHX JO UMO} P2|TeA 9} pUNoj aM SIOTIVs eABAL JO pos oUIOS 0} a][durIe} SIT} puryog 


; 
, 
@ > 
; 
oa 
\. 


ne Oe 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 225 


parrot or macaw. This was a realistic carving. 
What the bird represented other than a mere deco- 
ration we do not know. In the three Maya books 
or codices, which escaped the destructive bigotry of 
the Spanish priests, are pictured anthropomorphic 
birds, which may represent lesser deities. The 
Yucatan screech owl was aptly named the Moan 
Bird, and was associated with death in Maya art. 

Realism played a comparatively small part in Maya 
art. Of course, all art is somewhat conventional- 
ized, but the Maya variety is extremely so, for the 
sculptor and painter of ancient Central America 
generally was more concerned with registering an 
idea than with merely producing an imitation of 
the model. Of all ancient sculptors and painters in 
this Hemisphere the members of the race which 
built Copan, Tulum, and Muyil were the most orig- 
inal. The nations of Nahua stock, the Toltecs and 
especially the Aztecs, are better known, alas, to 
the modern world. But as Spinden points out in 
his masterly ‘“‘Study of Maya Art,’’ which was 
given in the Prix au Grand by the French Govern- 
ment, ‘‘Maya art was vital, original and construc- 
tive, while Nahua art was largely devoted to imita- 
tions and to derived forms.”’ 

At the risk of appearing flippant, it may be said 
that the Mayas have never had a first-class press 


226 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


agent. While the works of Stephens found many 
readers, they were overshadowed by the publication 
of Prescott’s fascinating Conquest of Mexico. Pres- 
cott dwelt on the semi-barbaric culture of the Aztecs. 
He failed to stress the fact that the Mayas had an 
older and higher civilization, and to this day, if you 
speak of ‘“‘ruined cities in Mexico,” the average 
layman will respond, ‘‘Oh, yes, you mean the 
Aztecs.”” The fact is that the Mayas were far 
superior to the Aztecs in art, in science, in most 
of the refinements which make what we loosely call 
civilization. 

Indeed the Mayas, Aztecs and Toltecs have been 
properly ranked for all time by Spinden in the fol- 
lowing words (and would that every person inter- 
ested in the splendid accomplishments of the first 
Americans would paste them in his hat!): 


’ 


‘“A remarkably close analogy,’”’ says Spinden, 
‘‘may be drawn between the Mayas and Aztecs in 
the New World and the Greeks and Romans in 
the Old, as regards character, achievements, and 
relations one to the other. The Mayas, like the 
Greeks, were an artistic and intellectual people who 
developed sculpture, painting, architecture, astron- 
omy and other arts and sciences to a high plane. 

. . The Aztecs, like the Romans, were a brusque 
and warlike people who built upon the ruins of an 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 227 


earlier civilization that fell before the force of their 
arms and who made their most notable contributions 
to organization and government. The Toltecs 
stand just beyond the foreline of Aztecan history and 
may fitly be compared to the Etruscans. ‘They were 
the possessors of a culture derived in part from 
their brilliant contemporaries that was magnified 
to true greatness by their ruder successors.’’ 


Two of the buildings in this group of eight were 
very small, not so small as the tiny shrine at Chen- 
chomac but nevertheless, very diminutive. To me 
the reason for this is extremely interesting: 


’ 


‘‘Very often,’ says Spinden, ‘‘what was origin- 
ally a small independent shrine later became the 
sanctuary of a temple built around it. If worship 
of the God to whom the shrine was erected proved 
profitable he was rewarded with a temple.”’ 


Perhaps these small buildings of religious purpose 
were erected so slight a time before the arrival of the 
Spaniards that the Conquest prevented any enlarge- 
ment of them. At any rate they are well made 
specimens of their type, a type represented by sev- 
eral of the buildings found by the Carnegie Institu- 
tion at Xelha, a few miles south of here. And all 
the buildings in this group are well preserved— 
which may also indicate their late construction. 


228 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Our elation at discovering them was not diminished 
when Katzim said that the name of this place was 
Xkaret. 

The most easterly of these buildings was a temple 
characteristically raised on a low pyramid, and 
from here through the leaves one could see the ocean. 
But from the sea this temple and the others in the 
plaza group were invisible. 

When we gave Agapito Katzim eight pesos and 
explained to him that such buildings were worth a 
peso apiece to us he remarked that he could show 
us five more. He led us perhaps two hundred yards 
inland and a third of a mile north. But before we 
glimpsed the five buildings there located we came 
upon something even more interesting. This was 
a well made stone wall, which I roughly measured 
as six feet high and six feet broad. Katzim said it 
enclosed the city on three sides, running practi- 
cally to the sea on the north and south of the ancient 
Indian town. 

Undoubtedly this wall was defensive in character. 
Stephens found traces of a wall about Mayapan, but 
the only known cities besides Xkaret with walls 
standing today are Tulum and Xelha, and the wall 
at the latter place merely cuts across a peninsula, 
the major part of the city’s protection having been 
afforded by water. 


— 6 we eee 


saoue SuIpen BARYT YIM peT[y duo ‘JoqIeYy JoIeYX OFUT JVOq IOPOUr 4SIG OU} 400} BIND 


i 
i 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 229 


It will be noted that these three walled towns, 
Tulum, Xelha and Xkaret are all on the east coast 
of Yucatan, where the presence of water or cliff or 
both as a protection on at least one side of the 
city made the task of the Indian engineers easier. 

The five buildings which Katzim led us to were 
built along the wall with the exception of the small- 
est, which stood some fifty feet outside it. The 
other four, which averaged larger than the other 
buildings of the city, were raised on pyramidal 
mounds whose bases apparently had been built 
either into the wall or just inside it. This question 
was hard to decide in the few minutes we remained 
at this spot for the wall here was practically demol- 
ished, was, in fact, a mere widely scattered mass of 
stone. 

There were many traces of other walls, lower and 
slighter than the one which had been built to pro- 
tect the city. It is quite possible that these marked 
the limits of private property. 

The wind was showing a tendency to shift from 
north to east, which filled us with much concern. 
Only a few minutes of east wind here would raise a 
sea which would put a big strain on the Albert’s 
anchor. 

But Agapito Katzim was excited by the clink of 
our pesos, and he wanted to make the most of the 


230 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


good luck which had brought rich strangers to this 
almost deserted shore. Before we left he collected 
three more pesos by showing us three more coastal 
temples. All are very much like Kanakewik, the 
first we had seen. One is north of that, just beyond 
the hut of Katzim, which is tucked in a fold of the 
rocky coast. The other two are south of the little | 
cove. Katzim said that once when hunting for the 
zapote trees which produce chicle he found a beautiful 
temple of the high, pyramidal type, a few miles 
behind these other ruins. He has since searched for 
it in vain, but he is sure he can find it within ten 
days. We have promised to return to Xkaret soon 
after the expiration of that period, and we have 
agreed to give him ten pesos for the temple if it is 
as beautiful as he describes it. 

Our promise means that we should return to 
Xkaret soon after February 18. Yet we have also 
promised Florencio Camera to be at Santa Cruz de 
Bravo on February 20 ready to start for the prom- 
ised temple of Tabi. How can we keep both these 
promises, look for Ramon Coronado’s ruins on Coz- 
umel and explore the coast north of here to Mugeres 
Island? Our difficulty seems to spring not from a 
dearth of ruins, as I once feared it would, but from 
a superfluity of them! 

Xkaret is a gem, however, and we are determined 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 231 


to return to it. Practically every one of the seven- 
teen temples we found there has an altar with evi- 
dence that it once supported a stone or clay figurine. 
Merely by scratching around a little (not violating 
the spirit of the Mexican Government’s prohibition 
of excavation) we may be able to find some of these 
and learn whether the people of Xkaret worshipped 
some of the known deities of the Mayas or gods as 
yet unplaced in the pantheon of the highest civiliza- 
tion of ancient America. 

Above all, though, it would be interesting to trace 
the course of that thick white wall. Such an explora- 
tion would probably bring to light other buildings 
than those Katzim showed us. Even McClurg is 
interested in doing this, he has begun to catch fire 
at last. That wall and the compact, well preserved 
white buildings of this old seaport have broken 
down his indifference to ‘‘musty ruins.” 

There is not much doubt that Xkaret, with its 
snug little harbor for small boats, was known to the 
Spanish Conquerors. We have not taken actual 
measurements but Xkaret seems to be as near Coz- 
umel as any place on the mainland with shelter for 
canoes. Very likely it was from there that Gero- 
nimo de Aguilar, one of the two survivors of a party 
of shipwrecked Spaniards who fell into the hands of 
the Indians in 1511, took a canoe in 1519 to join Cor- 


232 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


tez who had just reached Cozumel on his way to 
begin the subjugation of Mexico. And it may have 
been here that in 1527 there began a turn in the for- 
tunes of Montejo, the conqueror of Yucatan. The 
historian, Oviedo, relates that with his small army 
decimated by sickness Montejo fell in with a Cacique 
from Cozumel at a point on the mainland opposite 
that island. This chief was proceeding with 400 
men (more than four times the Spanish force) to the 
marriage of his sister with a mainland nabob. He 
directed Montejo to a rich town called Mochi, 
where the Spaniards were well fed and restored to 
a strength which they later exerted to slaughter the 
countrymen of those who had succored them. 

We reached the schooner to find Gough more than 
a little anxious about his anchor, which he was afraid 
would drag in the freshening easterly wind. As the 
Albert got underway I looked back at the ‘“‘little bay”’ 
which gave Xkaret its name and imagined the great 
canoes of the Cacique Ah Naum Pat paddling into 
this harbor laden with textiles, pottery and jewels for 
the wedding, and with natives in their gala attire of 
feathers and decorated cotton robes. 

We ran south one mile and a half to a very slight 
indentation in the shore, which slight though it 
was gave us a little more protection than we should 
have had off Xkaret. Through ten feet of water 


4 
i 
; 
: 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 233 


we could see our anchor resting on coral sand. In 
the two tenders we landed on a white hard beach 
which will be removed bodily in scows if it is ever 
seen by Florida realtors. For an hour we thrashed 
through the bush, all armed till we must have looked 
like a party of treasure buriers. The reason for the | 
distributed arsenal was the desire to get both fresh 
meat and rare birds for Griscom, who remained on 
board skinning those which he had shot at Xkaret. 
We saw no sign of a ruin, and only common birds, 
but acquired an appetite of a degree unusual even for 
this party. 

One reason we half hoped for ruins here is that our 
pilot says this bend in the shore line is called Inah. 
The explorer Howe, in writing of his visit to Tulum 
some fifteen years ago, mentioned a report of ruins at 
Inah; but we are not at all sure that the locality of 
this shallow bay and beautiful beach is Inah, for 
Castillo applied the same name to a place nearly 
five miles north of here yesterday. 

The maps and charts which we have brought, 
including the charts of the United States Govern- 
ment, seem to be more often wrong than right when 
it comes to putting down names above dots along 
this shore. We have been particularly anxious to 
locate Pole, which was an Indian port of importance 
somewhere opposite Cozumel in the time of the 


234 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Spanish Conquest. It was here that the chiefs of 
Cozumel formally submitted to Montejo. Pole is 
indicated on several maps of this coast, but none 
of the natives we have asked about it has ever heard 
of such a place. Not even with any of the com- 
binations and permutations of pronunciation which 
we have tried. 

This morning at seven we left the second so-called 
Inah and with one of the Albert’s engines helping the 
fair wind in her rather abbreviated sails we reached _ 
Paalmul at seven-fifty. We judge, therefore, that 
Paalmul is some five miles below our anchorage of 
last night. 

Long before we were abreast of the mouth of the 
mile-wide bay on which this village of chicleros is 
placed we sighted splotches of the familiar bleached 
thatch color which indicates native huts. A .mo- 
ment later Griscom, who enjoys glimpsing a ruin 
almost as much as a new species of humming bird, 
exclaimed: 

‘“That gray peak to the left of those huts looks like 
a temple.”’ | 

It was a temple. And before the Albert’s port 
anchor was in the sand again we could see enough 
through our glasses to feel reasonably certain that 
this was a ruin which we had been looking forward 
to with a good deal of interest. There is a picture 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 235 


of it on page 166 of that excellent Archeological 
Study of the East Coast of Yucatan by S. K. Lothrop. 
On the same page the author tells how it was seen 
from a distance by an expedition of the Carnegie 
Institution in 1916. 


‘‘We had lost our bearings during the night and 
towards morning the lighthouse on Cozumel came 
into view. Our boat was consequently turned 
towards the mainland; we approached the shore 
shortly after sunrise and soon passed close enough 
to a pyramid temple to secure the photograph”’ 
. . . (above mentioned). 


A visit to this temple made complete its identifi- 
cation as the one shown in Lothrop’s photograph. 
Of the pyramidal mound on which the temple was 
placed a rather imposing heap of loose stones remains, 
but of the temple itself only the inner wall over a 
crumbled stairway is left. This is enough, however, 
to let us be certain of the interesting conclusion 
that here—as in the chief temple at Tulum—the 
Maya architects deliberately turned their backs on 
a magnificent view of sapphire sea and faced their 
building inland. Today one wonders what they 
faced it on, were there other edifices or at least a 
platform for religious pageantry where now are only 
guano palms and little hawks swooping for lazy 


236 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


lizards? Perhaps there was a road to the group of 
eleven other buildings which we found about a kil- 
ometer to the north, and which that expedition of 
1916 might have found had it landed at Paalmul. 
As a matter of fact this temple on the shore was 
the last of the Paalmul ruins we visited. When the 
schooner had anchored we went ashore in the Imp 
through a passage in the reef too narrow to be safe 
for the schooner. The Jmp’s prow scratched the 
fine hard beach before a large building about which 
some thirty mules and horses were tethered. Ten 
or twelve chicleros crowded to the water’s edge, in- 
tensely curious about our little outboard motor, as 
are all the natives. Within five minutes after we 
had made the usual preliminary offerings of cigarets 
we had heard that there were other ruins in addi- 
tion to the temple on the shore and we had engaged 
as a guide to show them to us a man who seemed of 
importance among the chicle gatherers, one Anaclito 
Oc. He was little interested when Spinden told him 
his last name was the name of a Maya day. For 
the most part this lack of interest in ancestors far 
superior to themselves is characteristic of these mod- 
ern natives of Yucatan. Their attitude toward the 
‘past is pretty perplexing. We are gathering conclu- 
sive evidence that to this day many of them use the 
old temples as places of worship, and that their race 


[nwyevg sueu 
oY} I pulyeq SUINI ay} seaTs YoIyM ,,pruresdd usaHoIq,, 94} St .,a[dura}-asnoyjyys],, SIYL 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 237 


has done this almost continuously since the first 
effort of the Spanish priests to break down the native 
religion. In a ruined temple of Yaxchilan—on the 
border between Guatemala and Mexico—Spinden 
has found offerings of little figurines placed on the 
old altar by modern natives who made them. The 
latter fact is the more significant because these 
figurines are very similar to those which the ancient 
Mayas made. In northern Yucatan Spinden has 
seen the Indians putting out bowls of posole (a drink 
made of corn) as offerings to the: Wind God, and over 
these bowls they hung the cross of Christ! 

Apparently the need of religion is strong in these 
Indians, so strong that they do not much care 
whether they get a pure brand or a diluted article. 
Toward the visible reminders of the great past of 
their own race many of them seem to have rever- 
ence without very intelligent interest. 

Although we afterwards learned that the buildings 
to which Anaclito Oc led us were only a kilometer 
from the temple down the shore, they were two miles 
away over a rough trail from the spot where we 
landed. ‘The piece of cleared land on which they 
all stand is perhaps two-thirds of a mile long and 
half as broad and some seasons ago was swept clean 
of forest to make a native milpa, or cornfield. For 
this reason, despite the fact that the buildings are 


238 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


somewhat scattered, there are several of them from 
which most of the others can be seen. 

Oc led us first to a two-story temple. Buildings 
of more than one floor level are quite often found in 
other parts of the Maya area; but the second story is 
often set back of the first one on a foundation of 
solid masonry. Only toward the end of Maya his- 
tory did architects dare put one stone building 
directly over another, as here. On the lower floor 
was the characteristic Maya sanctuary—really a 
little temple in itself—like the small ones at Xkaret 
and Chenchomac, with a gallery running around it 
on three sides. There were traces of several thick- 
nesses of paint in several colors over the front door. 
The structure above had four doors, one on each 
side, the southern door opening directly onto an 
altar, upon which was seated a statue, or rather, a 
large fragment of a statue. Other pieces were scat- 
tered over the floor. We found enough of them 
to reconstruct most of the figure except the head, 
which was gone. The god, if such he were, had 
‘been seated in a niche on the raised altar, his left 
foreleg folded under his body, his right leg stretched 
forward. The body had been of hollow terra cotta 
painted red, white, and green. The whole figure 
had been perhaps three feet high. 

Our guide said he could take us to a building 


On an altar in the upper story of this building at Paalmul we found the 
fragments of a terra cotta god 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 239 


nearby which contained another dicho, as he called 
the statuette (a word which my Spanish dictionary 
translates as “‘grub; insect; ridiculous person’’). 
He said this one was in perfect condition when he 
saw it three months ago. 

He led us past two buildings which we explored 
later, and kept losing his way in thickets of annoy- 
ingly thorny bushes. 

““Maybe it’s a son of a bicho,’’ said Whiting in 
exasperation. 

At last we reached a one-storied temple beside 
a mound where another had fallen. 

_ “Tt’s in here,’’ said Oc. 

But the bzcho was not there. 

We reported this disappearance to the leader of 
the chicleros encamped on the beach, in order to 
establish an alibi for ourselves. It is no uncommon 
thing for archeologists to be blamed by the Mexi- 
can Government for the looting of temples actually 
done by ignorant natives. The Indians are often 
superstitious about their idols, however, and it is 
possible that this statuette was removed only an 
hour or two before our arrival to save it from profan- 
ation at our hands. 

We do not know what the statuette we found was 
made to represent. But it is similar to terra cotta 
figures which have been found in Tabasco, far west 


240 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


of here. And we are gathering an abundance of 
evidence that in Quintana Roo terra cotta figure 
sets of this style were put on table altars and in 
niches over the doors of shrines. 

This sort of thing may seem unimportant. But it 
is just this way, picking up a piece of knowledge 
here and a piece there and fitting them together, it 
is just this way that science has been working out 
the Maya Riddle bit by bit. To me it is one of 
the most romantic exercises man has practised since 
intelligence first flickered up in his brute mind. 
Remember that most of the easy evidence was 
wiped out when the bigoted Spanish Bishop, Diego 
de Landa, deliberately destroyed the Maya books 
and records which the Indian priests brought to him. 

Archeologists who first tackled the problem had 
to work in the dark. The task has been one of tre- 
mendous patience. The frequency of glyphs from 
all the known inscriptions has been counted, their 
variations studied, and sculpture, for example, such 
as we have found at Paalmul, has been compared 
with sculpture in another part of the Maya area, 
and both compared to surviving fragments of Aztec, 
Zapotecan or other early American art. Thanks 
to much arduous work of this sort the indelible ink 
of truth is beginning to shine through the scrawls 
made with the gaudy crayon of imagination. 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 241 


Less than two hundred yards westward of the two- 
storied temple is a patio group of buildings, four 
pretty badly decayed and two reduced to mere 
mounds of stone covered with bush and vines. We 
spent little time here before going eastward some 
two hundred agonizing paces through thorny vines 
to the most interesting structure at Paalmul. This 
appeared at first a mere abrupt knoll of earth cov- 
ered with dense shrubbery. Fifteen minutes hard 
work with the machetes opened up a view of masonry, 
and half an hour more of hacking produced proof 
that the masonry had been in rising terraces. Near 
the top of the knoll of stonework we found a low 
door opening into a small sanctuary with altar at 
the back. Then it was time to return to the 
schooner, in fact we were two hours late to lunch. 

The sun was well down the sky before we con- 
firmed an exciting suspicion which we had been 
entertaining, namely, that this building is round. 
Only two other round buildings have ever been 
found, of Maya construction. One of these, which 
was at Mayapan, in northern Yucatan, was de- 
stroyed by lightning in 1867. The other is the 
so-called Caracol at Chichen Itza which is believed 
to have been an astronomical observatory. 

This Paalmul building is thirty-one feet eight 
inches high, but bigger than that measurement 


242 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


indicates, for it is roughly cone shaped and has a 
considerable diameter at the bottom. It has four 
different walls or belts of masonry, looking not un- 
like four turrets of a battleship, placed one above 
another, the smallest at the top. The only room 
which we could find was a small one in the upper- 
most ‘‘turret.”” An altar at the back of this room 
had been broken, exposing crevices which ran down 
several feet. Cold air emerged from these perpen- 
dicular cracks, suggesting the possibility of hidden 
chambers, such as those Mr. E. H. Thompson found 
in the pyramidal structure at Chichen Itza called 
the Grave of the High Priest. In other words this 
building may be atomb. Or it may have been asso- 
ciated with worship of Kukulcan, God of the Air, 
as 1s said to have been the function of the round 
building at Mayapan. But the possibility which 
suggests itself with most force to me is that this 
peculiar edifice like the Caracol at Chichen Itza was 
an astronomical observatory. Most of the thirty 
per cent of the Maya hieroglyphs which have been 
‘‘translated’’ relate to the calendar and astronomy 
of the ancients, or to methods of counting. As an 
example of how advanced was the science of these 
first Americans consider the fact that in an old Maya 
book, the Dresden Codex, are computations involv- 
ing nearly twelve and a half million days, or about 


Front view of round building at Paalmul which was perhaps an astronom- 
ical observatory 


aye 


THE GREEKS OF THE WEST 243 


thirty-four thousand years. In the same book 405 
revolutions of the moon are set down, and Dr. 
Morley, of the Carnegie Institution says. 


‘“so accurate are the calculations involved that al- 
though they cover a period of nearly 33 years the 
total number of days recorded (11,959) is only 
89/100 of a day less than the true time computed by 
the best modern method—certainly a remarkable 
achievement for the aboriginal mind. It is probable 
that the revolutions of the planets Jupiter, Mars, 
Mercury and Saturn are similarly recorded in the 
same manuscript.”’ 


Among the Mayas art, science and religion 
marched together. Art was used almost entirely 
as a vehicle for the expression of the religious im- 
pulse. As for science, the Maya priests were the 
Maya scientists. They put up stone monuments 
to use as astronomical sighting lines for measuring 
the length of the year. Night after night they 
scanned the heavens, never fearing lest what they 
found should upset established religion! These 
““barbarians,’’ as the Spanish discoverers called them, 
would have considered barbarous a society in which 
aman would be persecuted as Galileo was perse- 
cuted for holding that the earth moved around the 
sun. 


244 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


On the other hand a comparison with medieval 
Europe helps us in reconstructing a picture of Maya 
social life. During the ‘“‘dark ages’’ in Europe, 
painting, sculpture, and indeed most of the knowl- 
edge of reading and writing, was the very nearly 
exclusive property of the professionally religious. 
So it was with the Mayas, and this is one reason 
why knowledge of the meaning of the hieroglyphs 
was lost. When civil war, epidemic or other cause 
of which we are not yet certain, had wiped out the 
numerically small ruling priesthood)of the Mayas 
there was left only men of the lower classes possess- 
ing very little tradition as to what the body of learn- 
ing had been and no ability equal to the task of 
reconstructing such science and art. 

Of all the buildings we have found yet perhaps 
none would be so interesting to excavate as this 
Caracol. And our interest in this structure is not 
lessened by recalling that Lothrop, who is recognized 
as an authority on East Coast architecture, has 
written that ‘‘it is probable that a circular building 
was beyond the powers of East Coast architects!”’ 


CHAPTER XI 
SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 


OF course I picked the coldest night we have yet 
had to sleep on deck. 

The swinging berth is too narrow to turn over in 
without a process which requires as much care as 
the insertion of the last sardine inacan. ‘This means 
that I must wake up each time I turn over. Further- 
more the kopak mattress is so thin that I feel the 
board through it, and it is so short that I lop over 
each end of it. On his ample pneumatic mattress 
McClurg sleeps like a tired babe, while I turn and 
_ twist, bumping my head on the deck timbers above 
and chafing my nose against the supporting chain. 

To aggravate the usual difficulties of sleeping 
last night my head was full of visions of Camera’s 
promised temples of Tabi. And my body burned 
with the bites of ticks. 

People react differently to insects. I know a man 

who pursues a wintry climate all the year around 

because a mosquito is as poisonous to him as a viper. 

But the consensus of opinion among men of normal 
245 


246 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


zoological reactions and wide experience among 
bugs is that the mosquito and the flea are charm- 
ing epidermal tenants by comparison with the 
Yucatan tick, and his small cousin, the red-bug. 

It is not so much that the tick imbeds his head 
and the red-bug most of his person in your hide, 
if you let him. For you do not let him. A careful 
coéperative tick inspection at least three times a 
day will prevent such burrowing, and this rite is 
scrupulously observed in every well ordered expedi- — 
tion. But inspect as often as you like and the tick 
still finds opportunities to bite you. Apparently 
even when given the freedom of the premises the 
average tick like the cautious oil operator will sample 
the surface in a dozen places before spudding in. 
And each one of the spots thus tentatively punc- 
tured is good for a week or ten days of itching and 
burning. 

Men have different religions and different tick 
lotions. Pity one who has found no comfort in 
the orthodox varieties of either! The way to avoid 
dying is to avoid being born. The way to avoid 
tick bites is to stay out of tick country. 

High boots with trousers tucked well into them are 
frequently recommended to novices. But beware, 
this device merely drives the tick upward to the 
more vital regions. And the tick has not yet been 


SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 247 


born who cannot get in over belt, collar band or 
through button holes. And of course, if you want 
him in your ears. . 

No, the natives who go barefoot have the least 
trouble. Inspection of bare ankles is easier than 
inspection of muffled waist line. And after a while 
the ankle becomes protected by a layer of flesh 
corrugated and mostly numb. 

Cures for the itching are as difficult to find as 
preventatives of the biting. The ten per cent sugar 
of lead in pure glycerine recommended to me by 
George Laird, of the Chicle Development Company, 
is the best palliative of the pain I have ever found 
in a bottle. The best one of all, though, is an appli- 
cation of ice. A portable pocket ice plant would 
make the inventor’s fortune. | 

Lacking ice the sufferer may immerse himself in 
the coolest water available. But we can do that 
only by risking mandibles which might end the suf- 
fering by ending the sufferer. Yet when one has 
twenty or thirty raw red tick bites nicely bunched 
one is sometimes tempted to invite a barracuda to 
tear out that whole offending section of one’s anat- 
omy. 

seeking relief in coolness I went on deck about 
one o’clock. | 

But the cure was not much better than the dis- 


248 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


ease. Soon my teeth were chattering and for every 
tick bite I had a hundred goose pimples. 

The next three hours were an alternation of tor- 
tures. Either I was dangerously chilly, or com- 
fortably warm and tortured by tick bites. For the 
moment one’s skin reaches a normal warmth the 
bites burn with a heavy agony like flesh that is 
roasting. 

At last, with exhaustion, came sleep. But after 
an hour of that I was aroused by the touch of cold 
rain. I pulled over me a pup tent which serves me 
as a waterproof blanket, and I tucked its edges 
under the mattress on the deck in order to keep my 
foundation dry. 

Confident that I was safe from the elements I 
dozed off, only to awake again with a sensation of 
unpleasant dampness beneath me. Water had 
come up through the mattress, which was now a 
saturated sponge. : 

The night was thinning anyway, so reluctantly I 
stood erect. The resultant noise was like an ele- 
phant wrecking a tent under a waterfall. It re- 
minded me of the tumult of a Chautauqua tent — 
which once fell on me in the middle of a cloudburst. 
Several quarts of water which had collected in the 
valleys of the collapsed pup tent sloshed to the deck 
in cascades. 


Back view of round Paalmul “observatory.” Priests were the astrono- 
mers of the Mayas, who saw no conflict between religion and science 


SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 249 


As the ultimate frustration of the struggles of 
that agonizing night this was somehow immensely 
and overwhelmingly funny. Griscom, who had 
patiently borne my night-long efforts to achieve 
quiet repose, laughed and laughed till the tears 
rolled down his face and the whole schooner was 
awake. 

After a long morning of photographing and meas- 
uring twelve buildings at Paalmul we persuaded 
Anaclito Oc to ship with us for the four mile run to 
-Chakalal. 

There is greediness behind the haste with which 
we dash from one group of ruins to another. We 
are not forgetting that several previous expeditions 
were prevented by the weather from discovering the 
buildings which we are studying. Always in our 
minds is the rumor that Gann is coming down this way 
in a schooner. We are like men in a gold rush, try- 
ing to stake out as many claims as possible before all 
work is stopped by the blizzards of Alaskan winter. 

After the wind had driven us from Xkaret by 
shifting to the east it obligingly backed into the 
north again and has held there. Of course the scope 
of our expedition is purely explorative, anyway, but 
we are hurrying down this particular segment of 
coast faster than we should were not our work de- 
pendent on the continuance of an offshore wind. 


250 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Once we have ‘‘staked our claims,” that is, discov- 
ered as many new sites as possible, we can return 
for more intensive study. If weather does not per- 
mit returning by sea we may revisit these places by 
land another season. Now that the profits of chicle 
gathering are bringing the Indians to a peaceful 
frame of mind towards foreigners it will be quite 
feasible to leave the railhead at Valladolid in the 
State of Yucatan and strike through the bush to this 
coast. 

A beach inhabited by a species of sea snail which 
provided our soup for two days marked the spot to 
land at Chakalal. Oc had worked here three or 
four years previously with a gang of chicleros. He 
thought he could find a trail they had cut, passing 
a Maya temple. He plunged into the bush to look 
for it, leaving Spinden and me on the beach. In 
half an hour he emerged, unsuccessful. He went 
in again, and after nearly an hour we heard his 
whoops, half muffled by the thick brush. He burst 
out of the jungle at almost the very spot where he 
had first sought the trail. There it was, said he, 
but so overgrown that Spinden and I had no evidence 
of it but Oc’s word. 

There was less than an hour of daylight left when 
we forsook the bright beach for the dull bush. We 
advanced in single file, all hacking at trees in mid 


SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 251 


stride to mark the route back. The sun had set 
when we reached the temple, something over a mile 
from the beach, we judged. We lingered hardly a 
second, merely snatching sprigs of vanilla, with 
which the temple was covered. Before we had gone 
a third of the way back the woods were dark, and a 
night monkey was howling. But our blazes gleamed 
faintly on chaca and zapote trees, and the guide had 
the trail instinct of a homeward bound mule. 

In the morning we returned to it, found another 
temple within a quarter of a mile of it and a mound 
where a third building had dissolved close beside 
the first. The frequency with which one finds 
mounds with hardly a stone standing beside build- 
ings almost intact is partly due to a varying solidity 
of construction, perhaps, but it is chiefly the result 
of a difference in age. Some sites were occupied 
continuously for several hundreds of years during 
which new structures were springing up more or less 
continually. Others, like Chichen Itza, were aban- 
doned only to be re-occupied. 

These two buildings, overshadowed by some of 
the largest trees we have yet encountered in this 
land of scrubby vegetation, are very good represen- 
tatives of a type of structure peculiar to East Coast 
architecture. ‘These are single-room temples, rather 
small, yet too large to be given the technical term 


252 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


‘“shrine,’’ which archeologists are coming to restrict 
to the small sanctuaries like the one at Chenchomac 
—over which larger buildings are often erected, 
as already explained. Like most Maya buildings 
and practically all of the East Coast temples these 
are raised on a substructure of stone and earth. 
Sometimes, as in the case of the temples of Tikal, 
this substructure is over a hundred feet high. With 
the smaller east coast temple like these two I am 
discussing it is a mere platform or terrace from one 
to three feet above the ground. One might suppose 
it was a desire to break the monotonous flatness of 
Yucatan’s scenery which led the Mayas to adopt 
this custom of raising their buildings, but even in 
the hills of Guatemala they did it. Perhaps a desire 
to escape the waters of the rainy season had some- 
thing to do with it. 

The walls of these temples, like others of their 
type, are about two feet thick. The lintel over the 
door is set in, and nearly always has traces of paint. 
Against the back wall, facing the door, is an altar 
made of mortar, raised a foot or two above the floor 
and three or four feet square. Buildings of this type 
often have flat roofs, in which the stucco is partly 
supported by beams of the zapote tree, so enduring 
that we have found many of them still sound. In 
other cases these buildings have the vaulted ceilings 


dura} ay} JO opIs yove je WOOT] IVS OY} SI9}U9 JoyeM YSorJ JO JoATT UBoUBIIO}qNS VW 
JIB JSVOD-JSEY Ul s1OJoq PUNO} JoAauU aIA}S B JO STIMU SUTe}WOD [e[eyeYD JO 1Oqrey ey} UO SUIpIng sIyy 


SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 253 


characteristic of most buildings of pure Maya archi- 
tecture. A flat roof is always suggestive of the 
influence of the Toltecs who overran Yucatan in 
the thirteenth century. 

Two cornices, at least, break the surfaces of ex- 
terior walls, but sometimes there are three or even 
four projecting ridges of stone. Needless to say 
the material of all Maya buildings is the limestone 
which forms the foundation of the whole peninsula, 
which is very young, geologically speaking. The 
Indians burned this stone to get lime, crushed it to 
make a rubble for the cores of walls, etc., and cut 
it to make solid building blocks. 

In one of these temples we found an incense 
burner, of a sandy sort of ware. Maya pottery was 
shaped by hand generally, although sometimes a 
block turned by the foot was held under the utensil 
during formation. 

In a similar temple on a half hidden lagoon north 
of our anchorage we found much greater treasure. 
Gough came upon this temple while looking for fish. 
They swarm over the bright sandy floor of the bay, 
especially fish about two feet long of a luscious dark 
blue. This little bay is perhaps four hundred yards 
long and two hundred yards wide, except at its nar- 
row entrance, for it is shaped like a sack or an 
oriole’s nest. On the north side there is an offset- 


254. SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


ting, smaller bay where we saw an empty turtle 
crawl, that is a pen of stakes driven into the bottom 
through shallow water. Here the sea tortoises are 
kept until the fishermen are ready to kill them for 
their shell or meat. 

The temple—which has conical stone decorations 
about a foot high on its roof, stands at the very 
head of the lagoon, which terminates in an abrupt 
wall of jagged limestone. From under this wall 
or cliff come bubbling out two subterranean rivers 
of fresh water. One of them runs on the surface a 
few yards through a small chasm in the rock before 
it reaches the lagoon, but the mouth of the other 
under the rock can be detected only by the sight of 
the fresh water boiling up through the salt. 
McClurg cast back through the bush looking for 
further outcroppings of these rivers but could find 
none. It is the nature of limestone to break into 
pockets and hidden chasms and Yucatan is full of 
subterranean ponds, rivers and even lakes. Many 
of them were used by the old Mayas for their sup- 
ply of drinking water, and some are reached bass 
tortuous, descending caves. 

- Spinden entered the temple first and I knew 
he had found something good by his grunt of satis- 
faction. The treasure was nothing less than several 
wall paintings. We have already found many 


SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 255 


traces of this sort of decoration, but these murals 
in the little temple on this lost lagoon which once 
was doubtless crowded with great canoes are very 
well preserved. There is a jaguar and a feathered 
serpent in two shades of green, and several imprints 
of the curious red hand. 

More than anything we have found these paintings 
gave me a creepy feeling of the nearness of the 
ancient builders, as if in a dark corner of this temple 
I had glimpsed a be-feathered priest at his occult 
rites. The sight of these beast divinities, which the 
Mayas endowed with half human attributes, seemed 
to increase the poignancy of the riddle which has 
baffled investigation. If only these walls could 
speak! 

The Mayas, like the Greeks, made much use of 
color, sometimes a whole building being painted one 
tint. Mural paintings are not uncommon, and from 
them alone has been learned much of what we know 
about the old astronomers. The red hand, a very 
common symbol, has been something of a puzzle. 
The suggestion has been made that it signifies 
strength, power and mastery, and that it is the sign 
of some secret brotherhood. There is reason to 
believe that some of the impressions of this sign 
were put in Maya buildings after the conquest, in 
short, that here is a tangible piece of the old ritual 


256 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


remembered by degenerate descendants of great 
ancestors. | 

Sometimes the impression was made by placing 
the human hand against a surface and painting 
around it and between the fingers. In other cases 
the red paint was daubed over the hand of the 
artist and that slapped against a wall. 

Jaguars were favorite subjects of Maya artists, 
and the Rain Gods of the Four Quarters were given 
the forms of jaguars in Maya religion. The Gods 
of the Mayas were many and included planets and 
forces of nature as well as animals endowed with 
human or superhuman intelligence. In addition 
there seems to have been a belief in a formless 
supreme being. Of the gods commonly portrayed 
in painting and sculpture the jaguar was second in 
importance only to the plumed serpent, Kukulcan. 
This serpent of ours has no plume but he does have a 
bird’s foot with open claws at the extremity of a 
sort of dragon’s leg attached to his body. This 
foot is held angrily below his gaping jaws, which 
would not be recognized as a snake’s jaws by a per- 
son unfamiliar with Maya art, which followed a 
course of conventionalization that took it to the 
opposite pole of such realistic portrayal as is now 
all the rage in the literature of the United States. 

The most important feature of these paintings is 


Wall paintings, which were in two shades of green, found in a temple at 
Chakalal. Above, a sacred jaguar; below a sacred serpent, probably Kukulcan, 
the feathered snake. Instead of feathers this one has a bird’s foot held below 
the open jaws, which would be recognized as jaws only by a person familiar with 
Maya art in its conventionalized forms. 


ree 


fe 


“hee 


a 


SONS 


or ey 


wits AI 


a6 ira * 
x C7 = 


SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 257 


that they are in a style quite different from anything 
heretofore found in old Maya settlements along the 
Caribbean Sea. They do not at all resemble the 
wall paintings at Tulum, or at Santa Rita, in British 
Honduras. The nearest things to them in artistic 
treatment are certain representations found in the 
Tro-Cortesianus Codex, one of the three old Maya 
books which fortune preserved from the destructive 
bigotry of the Spaniards. This Codex is assigned by 
authorities to northern Yucatan, and to a date not 
later than the beginning of the 13th century. There 
is no evidence of Nahua or Toltec influence in the 
Tro-Cortesianus Codex, an influence we are growing 
tired of observing, for we have found it in many 
of the buildings along this coast. Toltec art is 
inferior to Maya art, and the explorer is always 
_ pleased to find remnants of the pure Maya culture. 
There are many signs that this temple is being 
used by modern Indians. A trail debouches near it. 
A fresh beam with the bark still moist had been 
put across the western end of the temple to hold up 
the sagging walls. There were palmetto leaves 
on the floor where someone had made a bed, and 
there were fresh ashes before the altar. On this was 
the dried skin of a rattlesnake, and another lay 
nearby. Gough suggested that these had been put 
here by natives as part of modern rites to the sacred 


258 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


serpent. We take little stock in this suggestion, 
for snakes which are about to shed their skins like 
the darkness of temples, and use the rough stones 
as an aid in the process of undressing. It is inter- 
esting that although we have found several snake 
skins before these we have not yet seen a live ophid- 
ian. We are quite content to have it this way. 

There is certainly a dramatic fitness in the sight of 
these skins lying beneath the painted Serpent God. 
Did these rattlesnakes recognize their mythological 
ancestor? What a part the serpent has played in 
the imaginations of primitive man! 

As Spinden says, ‘‘The unique character of Maya 
art comes from the treatment of the serpent. In- 
deed, the trail of the serpent is over all the civiliza- 
tions of Central America and southern Mexico.” 

Similarities in conventionalized art are more sig- 
nificant than those in realistic art, so the advocates 
of the theory that the Mayas are descended from 
the Egyptians make much of the fact that the con- 
ventionalized feathered serpents of Yucatan are 
matched by winged serpents found in the Egyptian 
pantheon. 

However, the sinuous serpent body lent itself 
readily to artistic representation the world over. 
It is only natural that under similar circumstances 
human minds should react similarly, whether in 


SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 259 


Burma or in Guatemala. Old World artists never 
thought of the serpent in the spiritual terms of the 
Maya. They never put human heads and hands 
in the mouths of their sculptured snakes. 


The itch to find as much as possible before a shift 
in wind should cover the coast with surf and make 
landings dangerous or impossible drove us from 
Chakalal at sunrise. Forty-five minutes later our 
thermometer registered sixty-seven degrees Fahren- 
heit in the shade. Brrrr, that is cold. 

Anaclito Oc had already been sent back to Paal- 
mul in the Imp, with a reward for his services big 
enough to raise the price of all ruins to us if other 
natives hear of it. 

After a four-mile run before the boisterous wind 
which enabled us to save fuel we sighted another of 
the characteristic outpost temples. Spinden says 
they remind him of signposts marked, ‘‘Here Is A 
City.” 

We went ashore to investigate. In the rear of 
the flat-roofed building was an altar, with traces of 
recently burned copal incense. Leaning against the 
back wall of the building, their bases in these ashes, 
were two small crosses of planed wood. While 
Spinden was measuring the building I took these 
crosses outside and photographed them. I had just 


260 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


finished when I saw an Indian coming along the 
beach of the lagoon behind the small promontory 
on which this temple stands. I dashed inside and 
restored the crosses to their places on the altar. 

Again and again we have reached a ruin only to 
have an Indian appear as if by magic and keep a 
close eye on us until we had finished our work. It 
is becoming very evident that the Indians regard 
these temples of Los Antiguos with a certain rever- 
ence and that to a large extent they still resent 
foreign intrusion. ‘This is very significant. Bear 
in mind that science has never been sure of the rela- 
tion between modern natives and those who built 
the tall cities of white limestone. 

That the Indians still use the old temples for 
worship there can be no doubt. But it is quite 
another thing to say that they have definite tradi- 
tions of the great past which they could give up if 
they would. Alas, it is all too possible that the very 
natives who mix the symbols of Roman Catholicism 
and the ancient religion of Mayapan understand 
the true significance of neither cross nor copal. 

Gough and Whiting, who were on the beach, 
engaged this Indian in conversation till we descended 
from the steep promontory. He said he was General 
José Puk (pronounced Pook), Chief of the Indians of 
Acomal. It was his people who had told the Morley- 


a) ee ee ee Pe i 


BP ee ee ee ee ee 


1 


yny ur paary Atqeqoid sapdure, au0js oY} 4]INq CUM S1910qe] UL 


[ewody JO SUBIPUT UOpoUr ay} JO Sey} O¥T] S 


SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 261 


Lothrop party of ruins near their village. The locality 
of this temple where we found the crosses is called 
Ak, said the General, which means Turtle. It has a 
good canoe harbor and is a sort of suburb of the 
ruined town of Acomal. The General said the 
best way to reach those ruins was to go down the 
coast two miles to the modern village of Acomal 
and then strike inland. So he came aboard with us. 

At the sight of another Indian General boarding 
the schooner McClurg threw up his hands. Puk 
is indeed a picturesque hombre. At this moment 
he was wearing an English cloth cap with the visor 
turned backwards, a red neckerchief and a green 
flannel shirt. From lanyards over his shoulders 
which crossed on his chest were suspended a catskin 
pouch and a machete. With the exception of the 
sandals on his feet he wore nothing below the waist 
except a pair of B. V. D. drawers. He has side- 
burns and moustache, but they are so sparse that 
they don’t show unless they catch the light just 
right. With aquiline nose, strong chin and fine, 
frank, manly expression he is altogether the most 
attractive Indian we have yet met. When we 
reached his village he changed his cap to a six gallon 
felt hat with a picture of a houri on a beer tag stuck 
in the band. 

We presented his children with dolls, rubber balls 


262 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


and jack-knives, and his wife with a bottle of per- 
fume. The General promptly appropriated this, 
so we gave the poor woman another. Thereupon 
the General took that, too. JI remembered we had 
a bolt of colored calico on the schooner and sent 
Nelson after it for the woman, but I am not sure the 
General has not had it made into drawers. 

Anyway he earned his presents. In the morn- 
ing he took Spinden, Whiting and me to a pair of 
temples much like those at Chakalal except that one 
has human heads in stucco on the exterior front 
wall, one at each side of the door. The other has 
before it on an outdoor altar a piece of stucco shaped 
like a pineapple and about two feet high. Similar 
objects have been found elsewhere in the Maya area, 
but their purpose has never been determined except 
that it was obviously a ritualistic one. 

Insect life was plentiful at Acomal, and we stopped 
every few minutes for tick inspection. 

Simultaneously Whiting and I began to feel 
chilly and feverish, with aching backs and legs. 
Therefore we did not accompany Puk in the after- 
noon when he took Spinden to four more temples. 
But McClurg and I ran the Imp into a lagoon 
about half way between Acomal and Ak, where Puk 
said we could find a ruin. It turned out to be one 
of those interesting combinations of a larger build- 


SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 263 


ing built over and completely enclosing a smaller 
one. 

Lothrop calls this peculiar East Coast double 
building a palace, arguing that the interior arrange- 
ment indicates that the larger rooms were used for 
residence and that the smaller building against the 
back wall of the chief structure is a sort of private 
sanctuary. One reason which he cites for his con- 
clusion is ‘“‘the fact that no other structures exist 
suitable for residence’? among East Coast sites. 
He is evidently thinking of the fact that in other 
parts of the Maya area there are buildings of many 
rooms which seem to have been well suited for the 
residence of priests and other dignitaries. Two such 
buildings, which may easily be seen by any tourist 
to Yucatan, are the high bulky ‘‘Nunnery”’ of 
Chichen Itza and the long, ornate ‘‘House of the 
Governor’? at Uxmal. lLothrop’s argument does 
not seem overpowering to me, for it is quite possible 
that all the stone buildings which still stand in dam- 
aged form were used for administrative and cere- 
monial purposes alone, and that the Maya rulers, 
like the artisans who slaved for them, lived in 
dwellings of wood which have long since vanished. 
If our own people should be wiped out by some 
great catastrophe and our cities abandoned the 
archeologist a thousand years hence among the 


264. SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


stones of New York might find the Public Library 
and the Woolworth Building conspicuous among 
the structures not entirely destroyed. But he 
would not be safe in arguing that because they had 
been divided into many rooms they had been used 
for residential purposes. 

However, Lothrop’s suggestion about the East 
Coast ‘‘palace’’ is interesting, particularly when he 
says that ‘‘The presence of the sanctuary shows 
that even in his home the Maya noble was unable 
to escape the all-pervading influence of religion.” 

For mark you, all these buildings which we have 
been finding were of some religious significance. 
This is true of the mysterious round building at 
Paalmul even if that was an observatory. For in 
that case it was an observatory manned by priests, 
priests who believed that the Supreme Being had 
given them their faculties to use, and that obedience 
to the impulses of curiosity would never be resented 
by God. It is difficult to name another race in 
which the religious emotion so dominated the high 
artistic expression of a whole people, or worked to 
produce so ardent a search for the secrets of the 
universe. 


All good things end at last and this north wind 
faded last night (Friday) and gave way to a ripping 


SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 265 


breeze which came from a point a little south of 
east. At eight bells in the evening Gough snatched 
up his anchor and stood offshore. He lay off and 
on all night, not attempting to make much headway 
and not troubling to hang a light in the rigging. It 
is a deserted coast. We have not sighted even a 
canoe off the beaches since we left Cozumel on 
Monday. 

What a different picture it must have made seven 
hundred years ago! Xkaret, Paalmul, Chakalal, 
Ak and Acomal are as close together as towns on 
the Connecticut shore between New York and New 
Haven. 

Of course, conventionalized art is apt to spring 
from a later stage of culture development than real- 
istic art. But the Mayas continued some use of 
realistic sculpture up to the time of their downfall, 
and the realistic heads affixed to temple exteriors 
which we have been finding does not mean that these 
old seaports date back to the first period of Maya 
history. Indeed, they are unmistakably of the 
last period, which ran from about 1200 A.D. to the 
arrival of the Spaniards. And if decadent peoples 
sometimes revert to primitive art forms these imita- 
tive sculptures may lend one more support to the 
contention that the Maya civilization had run far 
downhill when the Spaniards found it; a contention 


266 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


which all the other evidence nearly lifts to the dig- 
nity of a fact. 

We believe that probably the “‘three large towns”’ 
seen by Juan Diaz in 1517 were among the five sites 
which we have just finished exploring. | 

Daybreak found us wallowing in a short green 
chop. Under our lee was the crumbling temple and 
high mound which probably gave Paalmul : ‘Broken 
Pyramid’’) its name. 

A short distance north of Xkaret we saw the 
thatched houses of Playa Carmen. In spite of the 
on-shore wind we managed to land in the Imp, 
which is an excellent surf boat, particularly since 
Gough covered her tender bottom with a layer of 
canvas at Cozumel. There are several ruins here 
which were discovered by the Carnegie Institution 
Expedition of 1918. Spinden put his tape on two 
buildings which that expedition did not have time 
to measure. One of them has been used by the 
Indians for drying tobacco. 

We were surprised to find in this town of eight huts 
and forty-eight people a school. It was opened by 
the Mexican Government a few years ago and has 
nine pupils. That the Calles régime should carry 
education to such a tiny and inaccessible hamlet 
speaks well for the future of Mexico. The sum of 
the world’s knowledge about the Mayas of old is 


SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 267 


bound to be helped by carrying enlightenment to 
the poor handful of Indians living in what was once 
perhaps the most thickly settled piece of the 
globe. 

I have sometimes been asked for an estimate of 
this ancient population expressed in definite figures. 
It might be possible to work out an estimate of max- 
imum population per square mile, but it has never 
been done. However, the figures must have been 
high, no other conclusion is possible to one who 
sees the generosity with which pyramids, raised 
platforms and walls built by human labor with stone 
tools were scattered over the countryside. 

Over our teacups at lunch I put a question on this 
point to Spinden. He said: 

“‘A factor which many people overlook in such a 
problem as this is that there were in the, Maya 
area no beasts of burden, and consequently no use 
of agricultural food products except for human 
beings. In the United States at present we use 
only one-fifth of our cereal productions and the 
rest is given over to food and draft animals. The 
Mayas, therefore, were able to get 100 per cent 
efficiency in human labor out of the food which they 
raised, and since human beings were necessary for 
the carrying and cutting of stone you can readily 
gee that the means of supporting a human popula- 


268 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


tion once existed, as well as the need of such a pop- 
ulation to explain such remains.”’ 

We went on to Puerto Morelos, which we reached 
in early afternoon. This place has a good harbor 
for boats of not more than ten or fifteen feet of draft, 
and it has a sizable dock, a lighthouse and a narrow 
gauge railroad running to chicle camps a few kilo- 
meters inland. Otherwise its chief features are sand 
and an air of dismal decrepitude. We were disap- 
pointed to hear that the ruins in the interior seem 
to have no artistic features of any particular inter- 
est. And with Spinden seasick again and Whiting 
and me full of chills and bone misery we decided to 
run back to Sam Miguel de Cozumel, where we plan 
to leave Griscom to finish his studies while we others 
look up the ruins mentioned by Ramon Coronado. 

Griscom has now established the existence of two 
hundred species of birds on the mainland of Quin- 
tana Roo, of which few were definitely known before. 
One of his last kills was a very rare pheasant cuckoo. 
A week on Cozumel Island will finish his assignment 
from the Museum. 

We are sorry to lose him, and McClurg too. For 
just before we sailed from San Miguel the Com- 
mander got a cable which convinced his conscience 
that his business needs his attention. But he never 
planned to stay with us more than four or five weeks, 


I 91OJaq 1B}]e I0Opjno uO jafqo pedeys ajddvourd snorind yyIM [BUIODY }e puUNo; o[duray 


* 
. ms ‘ 
a Ny 
. 
oo ~ ‘ 
ws 
* 
# 
i 
4 
‘ 
. 
. 
» - 
. . : 
' 
: 3 
af 
1 
7 
2 


SECRET SHRINES BY LOST LAGOONS 269 


and unless we visit Mugeres Island there will be no 
new coast for him to study. His work is virtually 
finished, as well as Griscom’s, and he has never had 
the slightest interest in the inland trip to Tabi 
which is now uppermost in the minds of Spinden, 
Whiting and me. So he is taking a freight steamer 
to Belize in two or three days and there catching the 
United Fruit boat to New Orleans. 

But sadness over the coming separation and the 
sickness of three of us cannot keep down that warm 
feeling of triumph inside. ‘The ancients were right 
in assigning the seat of the emotions to the belly. 
When I think of the discoveries we have made since 
Monday it is with a distinct physical glow, which 
centers around the solar plexus. Five sites of ruins 
in five successive days! We might wait here five 
years for another five days of weather so favorable 
for landing on that whip-sawed mainland coast. 
Mark you, the prevailing easterly winds of winter 
did not matter so much to the canoes of the Mayas, 
for they, like our dinghies, had shelter in the shoal 
harbors we have been exploring. But there our 
schooner could not go to escape the wind and sea, 
and the Albert was a necessary base to our opera- 
tions. It is of our schooner we are thinking when 
we say that our success this past week has been 
ninety-nine per cent the result of gorgeous luck. 


CHAPTER XII 
NATIVE WOMEN 


EvERY explorer is expected to have his experiences 
with native women. If he does not have them he 
invents them, and during interludes in his own coun- 
try he regales his commuter friends with tales of 
dusky, undraped beauties, unspoiled creatures with 
generous charms and innocent hearts. Enjoyment 
of the envy in the eyes of the civilized listeners to 
such narratives is often the chief reward of explora- 
tion. 

Let me not be too flippant. There is a serious side 
to the matter. I am not referring to that which 
every woman knows. I am alluding to another 
facet of this subject, the neglect of which has cost 
the life of more than one of those bold men who 
carry the first banners of civilization into the wilds. 
In short, I mean the jealousy of native men. This 
factor has brought many an expedition to disaster. 
I recall that several years ago I was accepted as 
first substitute in reserve for a party of exploration 

270 


NATIVE WOMEN 271 


up the Amazon only after I had taken an oath never 
to speak to a native woman except in the presence 
of three witnesses. 

Before I left the United States friends—mostly 
male, but not all so—would look at me sideways and 
with a clearing of the throat or some other introduc- 
tory gesture would ask: 

“What about the native women down there?”’ 

Well, Frank Whiting and I have had our first 
experiences with native women. 

This milestone in our lives was passed, this quali- 
fication in our careers toward full blown explorer- 
hood was gained down here in Belize, where we came 
to get medical help in extinguishing the malaria 
in our systems. 

Of course we had encountered native women ear- 
lier in the trip. At Paalmul, Acomal and Cozumel 
there were a few of the species of the big-bosomed 
type for which Gann seems to have invented the 
word slummocky. (He should change the second 
letter to a t.) But these creatures were—well, 
Gann’s adjective is sufficient description. And 
mindful of the welfare of the Expedition we always 
had the full quota of witnesses required by under- 
writers of exploration. 

But in Belize, not being on active duty, we faced 
a different situation. Each day we have been going 


272 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


to a rendezvous with a pair of native ladies. These 
private meetings have been usually in the morning, 
for at other hours they have domestic duties—they 
are both married. 

Yes, every morning at ten o’clock we have been 
meeting them, and each time we return to our 
boarding house with new hope, new interest in life. 
These meetings have been taking place in the 
Belize Hospital, and the ladies have been giving 
us nine grain injections of quinine. 

Now I am tired of native women, and native men, 
too. There is something depressing about living 
in a population which has one hundred black faces 
to every white one. If these negroes were gay and 
musical like ours, it would not be so bad. But 
they are a dour lot, afflicted with unattractive forms 
of religion. 

After three or four days of Griscom’s excellent 
nursing a Mexican doctor at Cozumel diagnosed 
our malady as malaria, That meant that we 
would simply be in the way for two weeks at least, 
for Spinden could not plot his buildings and Griscom 
could not skin his birds with our cots taking up 
all the open space in the hold of the schooner. They 
politely urged us to depart, and with McClurg com- 
ing to Belize anyway it seemed wisest to take ad- 
vantage of two berths in the steamer which brought 


Suny AA pus uosey[ JO SUOIS 
‘SUTIN ‘UOSBJAL “MOI WOTY Suopurds ‘3in[DQITAL 


-soidxo [eLIe[eU 9}0N  “WOISTID) 


:MOI HOG “YSII 0} 3J9T 


NATIVE WOMEN 273 


him, and with the help of British medical skill try 
to get well as quickly as possible. 

The first doctor we called on told us that the hos- 
pital was full, and advised us to eat anything we 
liked and drink, ‘‘Well, not more than a gallon of 
beer a day.’’ We had been starving, on the advice 
of our shipmates and the Mexican doctor, and the 
news that we might eat encouraged us so much 
that for a day and a half we deceived ourselves 
into thinking that the fever had left us. We even 
cabled Spinden that we could join the schooner in 
five days. 

But an increasing unsteadiness of the legs as we 
walked about the town, and a near-collapse of Whit- 
ing over the second glass of beer persuaded us to the 
reluctant conclusion that the heat we felt was not 
entirely caused by the tropical sun. The hated 
thermometer came out of the pocket. I sent the 
mercury to only 102 but Whiting boosted it a full 
degree higher. 

After that for ten days we sallied out only to get 
our mail and the daily injections. The rest of the 
time we lay about half dressed on our beds in the 
stifling attic of the boarding house recommended to 
us as Belize’s best hostelry. It certainly is superior 
to the more conspicuous ‘‘International Hotel,” 
though to say merely that is to damn with faint 


274 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


praise. It is conducted by a local celebrity, Miss 
Staine (or Stayne?), a plump, warm-hearted mulatto 
lady from Jamaica with a strong Nordic contempt 
for ‘‘Belize colored trash.” For ten days we read 
and re-read her magazines and played the old game 
of matching temperatures, with Whiting always 
winning. : 

We changed doctors and began to take quinine 
internally, which made it easier to sleep. In spite 
of thirty grains a day it was soon apparent that 
Whiting could not rejoin the schooner at all. 

Meanwhile came an occasional radio indicating 
successful activity on the part of Spinden and Gris- 
com. Failing to get passage to Cozumel I wire- 
lessed Spinden to bring the schooner to Belize to 
pick me up. A few hours after the Albert had sailed 
the United Fruit Company consented to Griscom’s ° 
importunities that a northbound freighter from Be- 
lize be stopped at Cozumel to take him to Mobile, for 
he had finished his work with the discovery of one 
more bird new to science and the collection of 
proof that there do exist on Cozumel some eighteen 
kinds of birds found nowhere else. For days I 
had been trying to arrange to have this steamer 
stop at Cozumel to put me off there, and I could 
have wept now that Griscom’s mysterious pull had 
accomplished it just too late to benefit me. 


NATIVE WOMEN 275 


But it seems to be just as well, after all. For 
fifteen minutes before the still feverish Whiting 
boarded this same steamer to go home our schooner 
arrived with Spinden, boasting a fever of 102! My 
own temperature had been normal for two days, but 
as Miss Staine said I had got one patient (Whiting) 
off my hands only to acquire another. 

Spinden was in bed two days. Thank Heaven it 
was not malaria in his case. Just complete exhaus- 
tion and digestive breakdown brought on by his 
almost continuous seasickness of the past six weeks. 

Between visits of the doctor he narrated the adven- 
tures he and Griscom had at Cozumel. Four days 
after we left them they anchored the schooner about 
three miles west of Molas Point, the northeastern 
extremity of the island, named for one of the many 
pirates who have hidden along this coast between 
sorties out on the Spanish Main. 

Spinden and Griscom went inland half a mile. 
There they found a small temple, with a human 
figure carved in stone occupying a niche over the 
doorway, and with a carved human face at each side. 
Over the door was a round column two feet high, 
surmounted by a peculiar stone triangle. A dog’s 
head carved in stone was affixed to the wall on the 
west side of the temple. 

Continuing inland, they crossed a fresh water 


mw 


276 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


lake with a viaduct made of great stone slabs, which 
had been built by the ancient Mayas. It was 
raised two feet above the water. For a quarter 
mile it could still be used, but the balance was dis- 
integrating for a considerable distance. The slabs 
had either been worn smooth by pedestrians or had 
been chosen for their smoothness to the bare feet 
of pilgrims coming to Cozumel’s shrines as Greeks 
sought the shrine of Apollo at Delphi. 

In a high forest, six miles from the landing place, 
they found five buildings, three of them well pre- 
served. Two were temples and the other three 
belonged to the typical palace arrangement, facing 
inward around a patio seventy feet broad. The 
main building of this group opened on the front, 
with four pillars in the center, two of each group 
being decorated with three-foot statuettes in rounded 
relief on stone, and heavily plastered. The left 
hand of each figure was on the hip and the right 
arm was raised in a gesture like a traffic cop signal- 
ling automobiles to stop. 

Another very interesting feature was that the 
flat roofs of these buildings had cross beams, the 
larger wooden supports running in one direction and 
the smaller ones going the opposite way. ‘The 
holes between had been filled in with stone and 
cement poured into the cracks. The use of a few 


poet 


Though Cozumel Island is small, Spinden found ruins the thick bush 
had hidden from previous explorers 


NATIVE WOMEN 277 


beams running in one direction is common enough 
but this arrangement of criss-cross timbers is prob- 
ably unique. 

The guide said there were other ruins nearby. 
He called the site Saint Tomas, after a large cattle 
ranch which had been abandoned in this region forty 
yearsago. But it was time to return to the schooner 
and Spinden and Griscom did not look for these other 
structures, thinking they could do so later. This 
was the afternoon of February 19. 

They then returned to the schooner, making a 
cross cut north by west and wading in lagoons up 
to the waist. On this trip they stumbled upon a 
colony of flamingos, which Griscom had long wanted 
to find. 

On February 20, while the entire crew, except one 
sick sailor, were shooting flamingos, a violent norther 
suddenly burst over the island. This was perhaps 
to the very day four hundred years after the fleet 
of Cortes was dispersed by a storm off Cozumel. 
Our boats started for the schooner at once, leaving 
Spinden and Griscom in the bush. 

The smaller boat was so carelessly handled that 
its engine was damaged and an oar was lost, so that 
its occupants had to be transferred to a larger boat, 
except for a San Blas Indian, who manoeuvred the 
boat to a safe landing. Then he wandered along 


278 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


the beach all night in a panic, cutting his bare feet 
on the jagged coral and falling into a deep hole in 
the limestone. He was picked up feverish the next 
day on the east side of the island. 

Meanwhile, the other boat reached the schooner 
barely in time to work her around, so that she could 
gain the protection of the east side of the island. 
Finding the schooner gone, Spinden and Griscom 
walked for four hours through the swamps and the 
thorny bush. They were sighted from the schooner 
at dusk. 

The next day they measured a large ruin on the 
east shore called Casa Real. Near the southern 
point of the island they found another ruin, con- 
taining three rooms and five doors, called Cznco 
Puertos. ‘These two ruins are used as landmarks by 
turtle fishermen, but are not believed to have been 
examined previously by archeologists. 

At the southern extremity of the island they found 
a temple built over the entrance to a cave which 
contained a permanent fresh pool. Stairs from the 
doorway descended to the cavern. 

They next visited a village of thirty-five inhabi- 
tants on the west side of the island south of San 
Miguel. This hamlet, inspected by the Allison V. 
Armour Expedition in 1895, then had ‘“‘two fairly 
well preserved structures, while others, almost 


NATIVE WOMEN 279 


wholly destroyed by modern builders, were trace- 
able, thus indicating an ancient occupancy of more 
than usual importance.’’ Spinden found that one 
of the ruins mentioned by W. H. Holmes in the fore- 
going quotation had recently been torn down to 
build a jail! 

Seventeen years ago Arnold and Frost, the British — 
explorers, found the Mexicans making a stone quarry 
of a group of ruins near San Miguel, including a build- 
ing which contained ‘‘a remarkable carving repre- 
senting a figure of a god seated cross-legged, in true 
Buddhist attitude, in a niche.’’ The senseless folly 
of looting the stones of ruins for the construction of 
such valuable modern structures as jails and the 
walls of cow corrals is a common sin in Mexico. In 
Merida, the capital of Yucatan, one frequently 
sees in the wall of a modern house a stone carved in 
the days of Tihoo, the Indian town destroyed by the 
Spaniards to make room for Merida. 

Although Cozumel is but some six miles wide and 
twenty-four long and boasts such adjuncts of civ- 
ilization as three lighthouses and a radio it is not 
surprising that Spinden found there ruins new to 
archeologists. Undoubtedly many more are wait- 
ing in the thick bush. They should be worth seek- 
ing because Cozumel shrines seem to have had a 
particular sanctity to the Mayas. 


280 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


One very interesting discovery of Spinden’s was 
examples of the red hand so conventionalized by the 
artist that the five fingers looked like the five petals 
of a flower or the five flames of alamp. ‘This shows 
that whether the red hand had a political significance 
or not it also came to have a purely decorative use. 
It is possible that this symbol originated in the dawn 
of Maya culture with the use of the five digits of the 
hand in counting. 

When Stephens visited Cozumel about eighty- 
five years ago the island was uninhabited. Today 
it has a population of perhaps eighteen hundred, of 
which all but three hundred live in San Miguel. 
This village has taken a great boom with the growth 
of the chicle trade. 

But the early Spaniards made as much of this 
island as the Mayas they supplanted. There is on 
record somewhere the lament of a Spanish cleric 
who thought he had been unjustly treated because 
he was made Bishop of Mexico instead of Bishop of 
Cozumel! 

opinden visited several high temples of the sort 
which impressed the Spaniards, who called them 
‘“‘towers.’’ Any modern explorer of the island will 
appreciate the rough accuracy of Juan Diaz’s descrip- 
tion of the temple where Grijalva annexed the island 
to Spain: 


sehey oy} JO SeTHO [219 
-IQUIUIOD 0} WOIVAd VB PUY POS SUTIVUT B 0} BUTIYS B Y}OG SYM PULIS] [OUINZO) UO ,,a[durle}-9SnoyYsI],, SIYL 


NATIVE WOMEN 281 


““One descended this tower by eighteen steps; the 
base was very massive; it was 180 feet in circumfer- 
ence. On top there was a little tower as high as 
two men; within were figures, bones, and cenise 
of idols which they worshipped.” 


Lothrop thinks that centse ‘‘may be a corruption 
of the Tainan word Zemz, here used in the sense of 
‘images. 

Nearly all the buildings which Spinden saw on 


999 


Cozumel were fairly sizable, and all of them were 
two rooms deep. 

While we were getting back some of our strength 
Spinden and I lay around on Miss Staine’s none too 
soft beds and discussed the future. With much 
regret we reached the decision to abandon the return 
to Xkaret. It is out of the question now to expose 
Spinden to any more seasickness than is absolutely 
necessary. Partly for this same reason we have 
decided to try to reach Tabi not by returning to 
Ascension Bay and taking the Fotinga to Santa 
Cruz de Bravo again but by striking inland from the 
head of Lake Bacalar, which is back of the penin- 
sula on which Payo Obispo is situated. Another 
factor which has influenced us to this decision is 
that the changed itinerary will mean seeing more 
territory which will be new to us. The Spaniards 
found many native settlements in the Bacalar region, 


282 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


and a letter which Spinden has just received from 
Dr. Tozzer, of the Peabody Museum at Harvard, 
points out that there is much unexplored country 
north and west of the lake. 

Briefly, then, our plan is to go to the head of Lake 
Bacalar by boat, and thence proceed by mule and 
Shanks’ Mare to Santa Cruz de Bravo, Tabi and 
Peto, the southern end of the Yucatan railway sys- 
tem. If we succeed in reaching the railhead we shall 
be the first archeological party that has ever crossed 
the wild territory of Quintana Roo, although the 
explorer Maler crossed the Yucatan Peninsula over 
a more western route. And if we find any ruins 
in this primeval wilderness they are likely to be 
older than the cities of the east coast. The course 
of Maya civilization was from south to north, and 
until we are nearly to Peto we shall be in lower lat- 
itude than Muyil, the most southerly of the towns 
we have found thus far, and the oldest. 

Even if we do not reach Peto we shall at least 
have followed one of the most interesting eddies of 
the Conquest, shall have trod a country of great 
historic interest. 

If we were in good condition there would be little 
doubt about reaching Peto, providing the Indians 
are as untroublesome as they have been. Frankly 
I am worried by the fact that we are both still about 


NATIVE WOMEN 283 


forty per cent below normal strength. JI, for one, 
do not feel capable of sitting on a mule’s back eight 
hours a day. The after-effects of malaria are worse 
than the disease. Spinden has lost many pounds 
and is still off his feed. But each day we become a 
little firmer on our legs, and we can but try. 

While Spinden was still in bed at Belize I boarded 
the Albert to take stock of stores. There was the 
old familiar smell of wet floorboards, groceries, and 
an undercurrent of gasoline. It was like getting 
home again, but to a deserted home. Rain was fall- 
ing outside, another norther. I opened a bottle of 
rum, but found small comfort in it. Whichever 
way I turned there was the unaccustomed sight of a 
bare bunk. 

I listened in vain for Whiting’s oaths, McClurg’s 
chuckle and Griscom’s bubbling, runaway laugh. 
And the boat kept reminding me of Xoch because 
she had planned this trip with me, had thought of 
sharing it, so the schooner seemed like her boat. 
And soon I was leaving it. 

There was too much tea, as Spinden had predicted, 
too much soup, and not enough bacon. I traded 
the excess of the first two commodities for more of 
the last. 

We sailed again on Tuesday, March 2, at the very 
hour we had put out of Belize before. But we 


284 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


shipped with three ghosts. We were not gay at all 
this sailing, for we could not forget the empty places 
at table, the empty bunks at night. 

We ran aground .on the same bar off Hicks’ Key, 
but worked free with less trouble than before. We 
spent two days and a half in Payo Obispo trying to 
hire mules. We went down to Corosal in British 
Honduras to see a chicle man who has mules up 
on Lake Bacalar. He agreed to let us have six at 
two dollars a day apiece. The next day, just as 
we were ready to start, he sent a messenger to say 
the price was five dollars apiece. _ 

Spinden went over to Consejo Point on the Brit- 
ish side of Chetumal Bay and telephoned the pirate 
that we would not be robbed. He argued and 
berated the fellow so successfully that the price 
went down to very near the first figure. 

Now it is the morning of Saturday, March : 
The Albert is moored against the north bank of the 
Hondo River just below where the Rio Chak empties 
the overflow of Lake Bacalar into it. We made a 
reconnaissance to the town of Bacalar and the 
chicle camp of Xtocmoc (shtocmoc) yesterday. 
Today we shall take the small boats as far as Xtoc- 
moc, spend the night there, and pick up our mules 
and drivers at Santa Cruz Chico at the north end 
of the lake tomorrow. There we send the small 


(100p SIY} JO OPIS YOVa 3 9UO SI a19Y}) S9DVJ ODIN}S JO 9SN BuTjseIo}UI UB paMOYs [eUODW je SSUIplINg 


NATIVE WOMEN 285 


boats back—burn our bridges behind us. Two hun- 
dred and twenty-five miles of thick unexplored bush 
will be between us and Peto, and about half that 
distance to the temples of Tabi. It’s just a case of 
give your mule his head and hang on. If the fever 
doesn’t clutch us again we shall make it. 

It is hard to say good-bye to infallible Gough and 
his six good boys. And almost harder to say good- 
bye to the old Albert. We still know she is not a 
beauty, but she has been ideal for this trip. She has 
scraped reefs, plowed mud banks, bucked northers 
and come through. A good sea and mud boat. 
Not since I left Pancho Villa’s private freight car 
has it been so hard to leave a moving home. 

Delirium Tremens is loaded above the gunwales 
with our baggage. Nelson holds the Imp ready. 
We step in, the propeller beats the water, we shoot 
into the narrow channel of the Chak and a thick 
green bank blots out the Albert and the waving caps 
of her crew. 


CHAPTER XIII 
THE TEMPLES OF TABI AND THE HILL OF OKOP 


IF you shoot at a flying duck and seem to miss, 
it pays to watch the bird till he is out of sight. 

We were nearly to Santa Cruz Chico when we 
turned back to get a duck which had fallen a mile 
behind us. I picked him and cleaned him while 
the two boys unloaded our baggage on a short sod 
covered stone dock which is one of the many re- 
minders that Little Santa Cruz was quite a town 
before the feuds of Indians and Mexicans wiped 
out its population. 

When the Imp and Delirium Tremens pushed off 
from the dock, above all when they swept out of 
sight around a distant point, I confess my heart 
sank. Whether it was malaria, quinine or sun, I 
was wabbly. The two hundred and twenty-five 
miles to Peto loomed up like twenty-five hundred. 
I flopped on the grass beneath a lemon tree while 
Spinden cooked dinner. 

That was a lucky shot. The duck was a godsend. 


I revived enough to set up my cot, or McClurg’s 
286 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 287 


cot, for which I have discarded my hammock. 
When I lay down on it the canvas broke. 

The mules were not coming till night. I patched 
the cot with tape and safety pins and prayer. Spin- 
den repacked our dunnage, especially mine, which 
was occupying an amount of space that could not 
be found on the back of two mules—and I am en- 
titled to only one and a half. 

Now that we are in the bush our positions are 


¢¢ 


reversed. Spinden is at home here, and I am “at 


Sea.” 

It is going to be a great problem to get my bed- 
ding rolled up and stowed away each morning before 
the sunis up. For it means nothing to say that the 
sun is hot in this country. All you can say is that 
the sun is a blow, a hammering on your head and 
back. 

You rise with the east gray and feel a pleasant 
vitality flooding your veins. You fold up your cot, 
fold blanket and ‘‘hangar’’ (mosquitero). Perspira- 
tion begins to pour down your face, down your chest, 
off your hands and into your boots. You start to 
strap your blanket roll, and—the first rays of the 
sun hit you. It is a physical blow. You reel, and 
the rest of the strapping-up process is torture. 

But lemons are good. We had not gone a mile 
from Santa Cruz Chico when I began to wilt in the 


288 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


saddle. The first tart sting of a lemon made an- 
other mile seem possible—if the will were strong. 
Then a lemon a mile for several miles, and suddenly 
the saddle, the mule were parts of me. Ducking low 
to avoid the branches covered with thorns and sting- 
ing ants became second nature. This was not a 
trail, it was a tunnel through the brush, a succession 
of ‘‘low bridges.” 

Here at last was a use for the silly pith helmet. 
It made a good buffer whenever a heavy branch hit 
the lowered head. 

At four o’clock Spinden finds it more comfortable 
to walk. The mules are tired, chiefly by a half mile 
bog they floundered through, leg deep. But no 
walking for me, not today. 

The head arriero rides in the lead, dismounting 
occasionally to cut a new trail where the jealous bush 
has entirely filled the old one. That he does not 
lose the way is a miracle, the result of some sixth 
sense. He is a fine, lean, iron gray man, with a 
trooper’s straight back and thin flanks. 

His assistant walks behind the train, throwing 
sticks and stones at lagging mules, cursing them con- 
stantly when he is not singing outrageous love songs. 
They are too obscene to quote, except one favorite 
refrain that he will excuse anything in a woman “‘so 
long as she is pretty, and has a little foot.” 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 289 


This boy is fifteen, but old in a rough world. 
He has sailed the whole Caribbean as cook on a 
smuggling schooner, he knows the cantinas and the 
brothels from Truxillo to Tampico, and he likes 
to air his knowledge. He could live in this bush 
indefinitely with no equipment but his machete, and 
he is as strong as a wrestler of twice his hundred and 
twenty pounds. When the mules were bogged we 
took off their packs. This boy trotted off with 
double the weight that Spinden or I could handle. 

We have passed several mounds of probable 
Indian origin, but no ruins. That is not strange in 
this stony bushy desert, abandoned even by buz- 
zards. It zs strange to see here and there rotting 
telephone poles, whose trailing wire now trips our 
mules, now threatens to cut our own throats. This 
is a relic of the last futile Mexican attempt to win 
back the jungle villages which the Indians sacked 
and burned in the terrible War of the Castes. 

It is nearly sunset when the head arriero raises 
the welcome shout of ‘‘Laguna!’’ It is the Lake of 
Nohbec. 

Spinden flops to the ground beneath a big fig tree. 
He is completely in, as thoroughly done up as I was 
yesterday. By some generosity of God I am not 
‘‘shot’’; at least able to make supper while the 
arrieros water and picket the mules. 


290 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


What a blessing is tea. Yes, in the Tropics, hot 
tea. Ten, twelve cups of it, for unboiled water is 
dangerous to drink and boiled water is nauseous if 
unflavored. But tea is more than flavor, it is new 
life. And with sugar and lemon and a dash of rum, 
why there you have something better even than 
grog Américain—which won the Battle of Paris. 

These big trees around the shallow, grassy lake 
are the only ones higher than thirty feet we have 
seen since leaving Santa Cruz Chico. There is no 
scenery here, just flat limestone plain, and scrubby 
bush. 

The second day is the same thing, only samer. I 
shoot a chachalaca, a bird about the size of our 
ruffed grouse but with a longer neck. We eat it 
for breakfast and take lunch out of saddle bags— 
dried raisins, dried tortillas, and a can of peaches. 

In the middle of the day it begins to rain, torren- 
tially. So when we reach the town of Petacab we 
strike camp. But the word ‘“‘town’”’ won’t do. 
There are seven or eight thatched huts with upright 
log walls, or none at all. These miserable shacks 
lie within the embrace of one of those fine old mili- 
tary walls which tell how the Spanish Conquest 
came—and went. 

Lieutenant Concepcion Put (Poot) of General 
May’s military Government, commands the ema- 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 291 


ciated villagers. He has a sick child and would 
like to buy for it a little of our sugar. The gift of 
a pound of this luxury wins his everlasting gratitude. 
We want ruins, do we? Well, he could take us to 
two cities of old Maya buildings, but he does not 
dare to. Therub is that ‘‘our people still use these 
places and General May might not approve. Get 
his permission and I’ll show them to you.”’ 

These places are called Huntichmul (Prominent 
Pyramid) and Ichmul (Among The Pyramids). We 
have never heard of either before, and the Lieuten- 
ant’s casual description of them as Indian rallying 
points which no white man has seen throw us into 
a fever of eagerness to visit these secret places. 

But no bribe can move Lieutenant Put. He is 
obviously very much afraid of General May’s dis- 
pleasure, and quite convinced that he will earn it if 
he takes us to these old Maya towns without author- 
ization. 

Tabi is forgotten for a while. We must hurry to 
Santa Cruz de Bravo and ask May to let us see 
Huntichmul and Ichmul. 

San Isidro is the site of our next camp after 
Petacab. The walls of the Spanish fortress, with a 
turret at each corner, are still in good condition. 
Spanish ruins are on every hand. 

As we approach Santa Cruz de Bravo the trail 


292 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


widens overhead, but becomes no softer underfoot. 
A crematory should be a good investment in this 
country, where grave digging means cutting solid 
rock. Where there is a little powdered earth over 
the rock it is reddish with oxide of iron. A farmer 
who gets a living here deserves it. Small wonder 
that the natives are giving up their mzlpas and im- 
porting food with the proceeds of their chicle. That 
commodity is to this region what henequen (which 
gives sisal fibre) is to northern Yucatan. Two of 
the most valuable vegetable products of the world, 
chicle and sisal fibre, are products of this God-for- 
saken waste of bushy limestone plain. 

The last five miles to Santa Cruz are made an 
agony by the high sun. The same crowd of drunken 
chicteros pulls at our stirrups as we ride through the 
plaza with its unkempt grass and untrimmed orange 
trees. 

General May cannot see us this afternoon. ‘“‘Sick”’ 
again. : 

A night’s sleep puts him in shape for social duties. 
He is dressed in his same white pyjamas, and re- 
ceives us in the same chicle warehouse. To make a 
long story short, though we plead for half an hour 
he refuses politely but firmly to permit us to see 
Huntichmul and Ichmul. It is easy to lose his 
meaning through the interpretation of his diplo- 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 293 


matic secretary, but it seems that one of the Gen- 
eral’s chief objections to our going to these cities is 
the fact that their temples ave still used for worship. 
We give him many English cigarets and the best 
hunting knife made in the United States, but we 
cannot weaken his decision. He suggests many 
other places where we may go, sites of ruins, too, 
but outside his territory. Above all Huntichmul 
and Ichmul are forbidden. 

Before the conference is over the General’s secre- 
tary and two other advisers present take an active 
part in it on their own account, and the whole 
course of our expedition up to this time is reviewed. 
These Indians are aware of every move that we 
have made, of every building we have entered. And 
at last it comes out that our visit to the subterran- 
ean temple at Muyil was particularly disliked, and 
that this has so strengthened the party which has 
always favored our ejection from the country that 
General May fears an open revolt might be the result 
of his giving us permission to visit Huntichmul and 
Ichmul. We observe that we have not injured any 
building or removed anything we found therein. 
The General remarks gravely that this has been 
noted in our favor. The way he says this makes me 
shudder, remembering how only Spinden’s earnest 
pleading dissuaded me from taking a fragment of 


204 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


old pottery from one of the altars of that sacred 
subterranean temple! 

At the end this Indian potentate says: 

‘‘Every day my people are becoming more accus- 
tomed to the ways of the outside world which chews 
our chicle. They begin to understand that you arch- 
eologists come to our shrines in a spirit of reverence 
and not to steal. Perhaps if you come back next 
year’’—he throws a covetous look at my hammer- 
less double-barrelled shotgun, the first of its kind 
he has ever seen,—‘‘perhaps if you come back next 
year I can let you see these cities you ask for.” 

I hope to return next year with an automatic 
shotgun! 

This is not mere flippancy. The eagerness of 
these primitive people for some of the mechanical 
advantages the white man has developed is pitiful 
to see. In return for our shotguns and radio sets 
they can give us light on the wonders of their past, 
as they have begun to give us their mahogany and 
their chicle. Spinden does not exaggerate when he 
says that ‘‘American archeology is founded on 
chewing gum.’ But for the introductions to these 
Indians which we were given by the privileged Chicle 
Development Company andits astute agents we might 
not have found half the buildings we have explored. 

Chicle is rapidly breaking down the anti-foreign 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI —_295 


prejudices of the Indians. A few years ago General 
May went to Mexico City and got himself a French 
wife. When his people heard of this they made such 
an outcry that he wisely decided to leave her at 
Vigia Chico on his return to Quintana Roo while 
he went up to his capital and tried to soothe his out- 
raged subjects. But he failed in this, called the 
marriage off, and sent the lady back to the more tol- 
erant outer world. However, if he still wants her 
he will be able to bring her to his capital in a few 
years now, so rapidly are the old nationalistic pre- 
judices of the Indians melting away. ‘The sad part 
is that the Indians are melting away, too. 

Forty Indians have just come into town to do 
their duty as a garrison. (Each of May’s villages 
takes its turn at providing a guard for the capital.) 
They are a sorry looking lot, anemic, consumptive 
and watery-eyed. They crowd into the room which 
Martin has given us again, spitting incessantly and 
preventing our doing any work. (It is raining so 
hard that we cannot start for Tabi.) They are fas- 
cinated with my magnifying shaving mirror and 
the hammerless shotgun, for which they offer me 
considerably more money that it cost when new. 
But above all they marvel at the pneumatic mattress 
which Spinden bought from McClurg. He blows tt% 
up with his own lung power, and the Indians insist 


296 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


on repetitions of this performance till Spinden is 
blue in the face. 

Most of them are still afraid of being photo- 
graphed, and throughout the trip it has been almost 
impossible to get a Maya woman to pose. Four or 
five of these soldiers, however, have just come around 
and asked us to make a picture of them all at once, 
and they stand with ridiculous stiffness while it is 
done, obviously encouraged to face the feared kodak 
by each other’s moral support. | 


For four days we were cooped up at Santa Cruz de 
Bravo while the heavens deluged the earth. But 
as we set out on the fifth morning there was not a 
puddle on the trail. It had all been taken care of 
by the wonderful natural drainage of this limestone 
formation. There were holes as big round as buck- 
ets, dropping straight downward through the rock 
as far as the eye could see. 

The first night out of Santa Cruz we reached Tabi, 
but before we arrived it was obvious that Camera 
is not the guide that he represented himself to be. 
He was constantly asking the way of his assistant 
arriero, a short, plump little fellow named Pancho. 
As we made supper at Tabi, within sight of Spanish 
walls, Spinden asked if the ruins Camera was “‘sell- 
ing” us were like these. | 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 297 


“Oh, no,” he said, ‘‘the ruins are Maya. But 
we won't reach them till tomorrow noon.” 

This ought to have made us suspicious. 

The following noon we saw ahead the tall piche 
trees which invariably mark the site of an old Span- 
ish or Mexican town. Camera had been losing 
patience under our frequent queries as to the prox- 
imity of the ruins. As we rode into a clearing 
bounded on two sides by remnants of a Spanish for- 
tification Camera said: 

““Here are the ruins, Sefior.”’ 

“What,” roared Spinden, ‘‘these are your temples 
of Tabi?”’ 

"St, Sefior.” The arriero’s eyes were on the 
ground. 

It was simply too disgusting, too cruel. Camera 
is not a fool. And we have spent hours explaining 
to him the difference between Spanish and Maya 
ruins, and have shown him dozens of photographs of 
the latter. It is just a cheap hoax, perpetrated 
apparently for the sole purpose of gaining a few days 
employment driving mules. A cheap contemptible 
fraud which costs us valuable time and not a few 
pesos. 

I exploded into expletives, but what was the use. 
I sank on the ground and reveled in the denuncia- 
tion of the despicable arriero which flowed from 


298 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Spinden’s lips. His just anger lent him an aston- 
ishing facility in Spanish invective, in the biting, 
scathing dialect the arriero knows as none other. 

The rest of that day—it was yesterday—was a 
dull gloom. 

But anger has its uses. We rose this morning 
still in a rage at Camera. The mule driver’s delay 
in starting did not diminish Spinden’s choler. For 
this reason he marched straight through the remains 
of another Spanish town where the arrieros wanted 
to stop for a bite and a drink, for it was noon. 

Spinden was walking in the lead, and when he had 
plodded an hour or so longer under the broiling sun 
even he began to realize the necessity of refreshment. 
As he reached a point where the trail passes a lake 
filled with bulrushes he called back to Camera: 

‘“You can stop here a few minutes.” 

Except for Spinden’s anger at Camera we had 
not stopped here—but before this. 

And when I walked down to the shallow water 
and looked across the green level of reeds I noticed 
a hill on the farther side. A little hill it is, yet unusu- 
ally conspicuous for this flat country. 

On the top of it I perceived a high excrescence, 
covered with growth but distinctly square and sharp 
in outline. 

‘That looks like a ruin,’’ I suggested. 


doYyO JO AIZAOISIP VY} 0} pay Yun] 10j yey AYON] V 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 299 


““No, it’s just a natural hill, Sefor,’’ said Camera, 
““T have seen it many times.”’ 

“It does look like a ruin,’’ said Spinden with a 
black glance at the arriero, ‘‘we’ll have a look at it 
after lunch.”’ 


We bolt a few sandwiches of dried tortidlas and 
canned beef and start up the trail, aiming to cut in 
at right angles to it as soon as we judge we have 
passed the end of the lake. 

Camera leads through the brush, slashing right 
and left with his machete and still muttering that the 
high mound we saw is just a ‘“‘natural hill.”’” When 
we have gone perhaps three hundred yards I climb 
a tree. Ahead is a woody knoll. That may be 
it, and I direct Spinden to continue as he is 
going. 

But in pulling my leg over a limb I have been 
straddling I look around, and there, towering over 
me, not one hundred yards away, is a thundering big 
Maya castillo! Its size takes my breath away, I 
hang in the tree, like a stunned bird, drinking in the 
majestic bulk and symmetry of the pyramid. For 
me this is the biggest moment of the whole 
trip. 

At last I collect my wits, realize that Spinden and 
Camera are disappearing, and shout for them to 


300 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


turn at right angles. Spinden is skeptical of my 
directions, but heeds them, half convinced by the 
ring in my voice. 

I slide down the tree, falling the last ten feet in 
my haste. Running over a small ruin I catch up to 
the other two, and slashing at the brush abreast we 
reach the foot of a great stairway. ‘The trees hide 
the top of the temple, but there is no doubt in anyone 
any longer. This is no ‘“‘natural hill”? but a whale 
of a castillo! 

We toil up the stairway, cutting away wild hene- 
quen, its sword-shaped leaves tipped with wicked 
black spikes. We clamber very gingerly, for many 
of the stones are ready to give way underfoot and 
crash down on the man behind. 

A doorway yawns above and to the left. Like 
some of the lofty temples of Tikal this one is built 
into the top of the great mound instead of being 
raised upon its summit. 

A clump of cactus bars the way to this chamber 
and we keep on to the top of the pyramid. Out of 
breath we crawl up to the flat top of the mound, a 
bush-covered plateau perhaps twenty-five feet 
square. If we had any breath this view would take 
it away. On every side is a flat expanse of forest. 
like a great green ocean, melting off at the edges 
into the blue of the sky. 


[Vwxp JO BZ} 
uayory) 38 punour Aue uvy} r9ysry ‘doyo 3 pruresdd v jo do} ay} poyover uspulds uUsYym JUSUIOUW vOIS OY 


we 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 301 


‘“‘God,”’ says Spinden at last, ‘‘this by itself is 
worth the whole journey.” 


We found the remains of seventeen other build- 
ings scattered through the ceremonial center of the 
ancient city, which center occupied an area of per- 
haps 800 by 1000 feet on the high land overlooking 
the lake. We were able to devote to their study 
only the two days we had planned to give to Tabi, 
for Julio Martin needed his mules and we had prom- 
ised to keep them only these two days above the 
bare time required for them to make the round trip. 

We have called the ruins Okop, using the native 
name for an abandoned Spanish settlement about a 
mile and a half north of them. But Okop is a Maya 
word and was probably never applied to their town 
by the Spaniards. It means ‘“‘hollow land,” and 
may well refer to the bowl which holds the reedy 
lake beneath the hill tipped by the great pyramid. 

For it is a great pyramid. We found it to be 94 
feet high with a base 150 feet wide and 170 feet long. 
It is higher, therefore, than the highest pyramidal 
mounds of Uxmal and Chichen Itza, although the 
roofs of the temples atop those mounds are higher 
than the summit of this pyramid, which has its 
temple in it rather than on it as just explained. This 
is a single room, 19 feet by 7. 


302 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


This hollowing out of the pyramid instead of build- 
ing on top of it, suggests that Okop is of fairly early 
construction. There are other indications of the 
same thing, above all, the unusual thickness of walls 
and heaviness of all construction. 

All the buildings at Okop average larger than the 
later period structures we found on the coast. Close 
on the southeast of the Pyramid-Temple is a remark- 
able ruin, consisting of four buildings on the four 
high sides of a mound 140 feet square, facing a 
tower rising from a low center. About 130 feet 
west of the Pyramid Temple is the massed stone 
remains of a building 110 feet by 130 feet by 45 
feet high. What appears to be the subterranean 
chambers of this structure, probably lower rooms, 
are nearly buried by the caving in of the rooms on 
top. 

‘‘Okop is undoubtedly older than the cities on the 
east coast,’ says Spinden, ‘‘with best indications of 
a connection with Labna, in Western Yucatan, and 
other cities flourishing about the time William the 
Conqueror entered England (1066 A.D.). It is 
reasonable to believe that the stone buildings in 
the ceremonial center we found were surrounded by 
many thatched huts. The place was not a center 
of art and learning, but a good, substantial city of 
industrialists, who took religion seriously and built 
heavy temples, wasting no time on flourishes and 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 303 


decoration and not believing in evolution. Briefly, 
good, substantial bourgeois fundamentalist Mayas 
built Okop.”’ 

There is an interesting round stone altar at the 
foot of the stairs of the Okop Castillo, a stone per- 
haps five feet in diameter and two and a half feet 
thick, looking not unlike a great sundial. Also 
there are several traces of walls indicating the divi- 
sion of land. There is no doubt that excavation 
would be profitable, perhaps especially in the case 
of the great two or three story ruin lying west 
of the Castillo—a ruin which seems to have had a 
number of rooms and in some respects suggests the 
“Nunnery” of Chichen Itza. 

The pleasure of finding this oldest of the seven 
cities we have discovered was much heightened by 
the fact that we came upon it entirely by virtue of 
our own efforts. After leading us to the false 
‘“‘temples of Tabi” the worse than worthless Camera 
did his best to keep us from visiting the important 
temples of Okop. 

And with such lazy aid as he could give us about 
the ruins we were unable to clear a single building 
enough to get a good photograph of it. The trees 
are large here, doubtless because of the proximity of 
the lake, and several days hard labor would have 
been necessary for us four to clear the Castillo alone. 


304 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


We used all our available time in measuring the build- 
ings and taking notes on their architectural features. 
For if most of the hieroglyphs still baffle science Maya 
architecture is a fairly open book, 

Not till we were very near Peto did Spinden and 
I find native villages, and when we completed the 
first archeological traverse of Quintana Roo and 
reached the railhead on March 22 we felt as if we 
had crossed the country of the dead. 

We continued to find many marks of Spanish 
energy, fortresses and great deserted churches which 
would alone have been worth going this distance to 
see. Indeed, from the time we left the schooner 
till we reached Peto we saw on every hand traces 
of the three occupations of Quintana Roo prior to 
the three successive abandonments, first, the Maya; 
second, the Spanish, and third the Mexican. Now 
that the modern Indians seem to be decreasing a 
fourth desertion of the hot, silent bush impends. 

The many evidences of the work of the Spanish 
conquerors prove them to have been a remarkable 
people. Undaunted by the bush, discouragingly 
thick, and the rocky, thorny trails varied by bogs in 
the southern part, they left remains of walled towns, 
turreted stone forts and moats and deep wells 
through the solid rock such as few people today 
have the energy to build. They did this under the 


Ysnq jUaTIS yoy oY} 0} payesep seyomyo ystuedgs JusoyIUseU puNo; aA, 


. 
. 
‘ 
~ 
‘ 
‘ 
. 


8 
a. 
. 


x 

ao 

* 
. 
¢ 

. 

aay ive 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 305 


almost constant menace of the natives and the pirat- 
ical raids of other powers. 

The hill fortress of Bacalar, overlooking the lake; 
the turreted ford of San Isidro, a small fort, moat- 
surrounded, a mile and a half north of Okop; the 
cathedrals of Bacalar, Santa Cruz de Bravo, Saban 
and Sakalaka are notable memorials of the Spanish 
occupation. | 

When we reached Merida almost the first person 
we met was Dr. A. V. Kidder, a colleague of Spin- 
den’s in the Peabody Museum. He had just re- 
turned from the ruins of Coba. 

It seems that Gann did not go down the east coast 
after all, but came to Merida and visited Coba with 
E. L. Crandall, photographer of the Carnegie In- 
stitution. Although its Mexican discoverer’s de- 
scription of this city was published by Stephens 
in 1843, and although Teobert Maler, the Teutonic 
explorer, visited Coba and photographed it thirty 
years ago the place seems to have been under- 
appreciated. Kidder visited it with another repre- 
sentative of the Carnegie Institution a week after 
Gann, and each of these parties found buildings not 
previously described. But neither Gann nor Kidder 
found the mural paintings Stephens reported. Alas, 
they have perhaps vanished with crumbling walls. 
Here is the tragedy of the world’s neglect of the 


306 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Mayas. Works of art and hieroglyphic inscriptions 
of inestimable value have been allowed to wear away 
in neglect while we moderns have perfected bridge 
whist and the cross word puzzle. 

Before we separated Spinden and I went to 
Chichen Itza to look at the excavation of that rich 
site being done by the Carnegie Institution of 
Washington. With Mrs. W. M. James of Merida, 
Mr. O. O. Gilmore of Los Angeles and Mr. E. L. 
Crandall of the Carnegie Institution I amused my- 
self exploring the caves which debouch on the cen- 
ole, or great natural sunken pool, from which the 
ancient inhabitants of Chichen got their drinking 
water. Mr. Edward Herbert Thompson, the owner 
of the ranch of Chichen Itza and the discoverer of 
the hollow pyramidal mound called the Grave of 
the High Priest, has made the exciting suggestion 
that there may once have been a connection be- 
tween these caves and this tomb. The tomb lies 
575 feet west 30° north from the cenote. Entering a 
cave on the west face of the steep circular cliff about 
the pool we found that a few yards in it forked. The 
right branch ran 241 feet west 65° north. The left 
branch ran 488 feet south 35° west. But the inter- 
esting thing was that both these tunnels had been | 
blocked where our measurements stopped by par- 
tial cave-ins, and as we peeked through crevices 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 307 


in the piled up débris it seemed that both tunnels 
continued. Without shoring up the roof it would 
have been dangerous to clear out the fallen earth 
and rock, and we did not have the time for that. 
Thompson’s suggestion of a connection with the 
tomb does seem romantic, yet a complete excavation 
of this cave might be worth while. Both tunnels 
are of regular shape, about four feet high and six 
feet broad. They were considerably higher, but the 
rains of centuries have covered their floors with a 
thick layer of soil. 

Meanwhile on one of the two square columns in 
the little temple back of the Temple of the Jaguars 
Spinden was finding a heretofore unnoticed low relief 
carving of Toltec goddesses, stripped to the waist. 
The latter feature is extraordinary, for the art of the 
ancient Mayas scrupulously avoided the nude and 
anything which carried sexual suggestion. 

These stones were recently set up by the Mexican 
Government, and formerly only the bases were 
known. One side is fully clear and shows a female 
divinity carved in low relief, and nearly complete 
in detail. The other sides do not show the heads 
clearly. But all have women in narrow skirts dec- 
orated with crossbones. In one case there is a 
sacrificial knife stuck in the girdle. ‘The heads were 
probably grinning skulls, and there are strong asso- 


308 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


ciations with death as in many other pieces at 
Chichen Itza. The upper parts of the body are 
bare except for a heavy necklace which partly con- 
ceals the breasts. 

It is possible that these dead women represent 
the companions of dead warriors. The Toltecs and 
Aztecs had a peculiar belief that men who died in 
battle and women who died in childbirth went to a 
special heaven because of their sacrifices for the ben- 
efit of the State. 

The return to Merida marked the end of our expe- 
dition. I took a steamer to the United States, leav- 
ing Spinden about to embark for Honduras to get 
some stone tables (articles of furniture, not tablets) 
which he had cached in the bush up the Plantain 
river on a previous expedition. These relics of the 
Chorotegan culture, which is related to the Maya but 
inferior to it, were wanted by the Peabody Museum. 

On returning home I undertook to write a series. 
of articles summarizing the results of our work. I 
had hardly begun this task when there came a let- 
ter from McClurg, in Chicago, commenting on his 
exploration of the head of Ascension Bay and the 
lagoons back of Boca de Paila, which proved that 
Allen Point is an island not a promontory. 

Two days later I opened a morning newspaper to 
see that he had suddenly died. 


The author was glad to reach ‘“‘civilization,’’ at Chichen Itza 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 309 


For three days I sat about in a daze, unable to 
work, unable to believe this news. It still does 
not seem possible—six months after the event. 
Of the five Americans who sailed along the Maya 
coast in the Albert he and Griscom seemed the 
healthiest, the least likely to crumple. How can 
such a vital personality as his be wiped out? 

The answer is that it cannot, as I think Josiah 
Royce has proved. To a varying but palpable 
degree his influence lives in each of us four who sur- 
vive him and from us will pass on to others in accord- 
ance with laws over which we have no control. 

I remember that night in Belize that he said good- 
bye to Whiting on the porch of Miss Staine’s weather- 
beaten boarding house, then walked down the steps 
with me to the car which was waiting to take him 
to the dock. The car started; I remember the 
friendly wave of his white-sleeved arm, the flashing 
smile on that strong, tanned face, the last shouted, 
*‘Good-bye, old man.”’ 

It may be my fortune to sail on many another 
cruise. But never with a finer shipmate than Ogden 
McClurg. 

Perhaps it is needless to say that there was not a 
particle of truth in a newspaper story to the effect 
that in Yucatan McClurg had been ambushed by 
Indians with poisoned arrows, and suggesting that 


310 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


his death was the result of a ‘‘curse”’ cast upon him 
for disturbing the tombs of the Maya priests. If 
there were such a curse as superstition suggests it 
would have fallen upon McClurg last of all of us, 
for least of all of us had he to do with ruins. And it 
would have fallen long ago on archeologists of 
mature age like Saville, Tozzer, Morley and Spin- 
den, who have spent their lives in what supersti- 
tious persons please to call the ‘“‘profanation of 
Maya tombs.” 

Now for that summary of what our expedition 
accomplished. . . . 

Our foremost goal was the discovery of a ruined 
city. We found the remains of seven cities, in © 
order named Muyil, Xkaret, Paalmul, Chakalal, 
Acomal, Saint Tomas and Okop. Also several 
lesser sites, suburbs, you might say, for it should 
always be remembered that the Mayas were a city 
dwelling people as we of the United States of Amer- 
ica are coming to be. 

Maybe seven was our lucky number, for. Griscom 
found a small fly-catcher on Cozumel which may 
prove new when specimens in Europe can be ex- 
amined. A little blue-gray gnat-catcher from the 
same locality was his sixth new species. He estab- 
lished the existence of some 200 species on the main- _ 
land in Quintana Roo, the majority of which had 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 311 


never been recorded there. He also proved that 
there are on this peculiar island about a score of birds 
which live nowhere else in the world. Of this im- 
portant achievement he announced to the New 
York Times from the American Museum of Natural 
History: . 


‘“‘Cozumel Island has long been remarkable for 
possessing a number of peculiar species, which not 
only do not occur on the mainland, some twelve miles 
away, but are found nowhere else in the world. Mr. 
Mason afforded me full opportunity for my task of 
securing adequate series of these peculiar species 
and of determining that they do not occur on the 
adjacent mainland. 

‘““The problem of the origin of these peculiar spe- 
cies is a question which has engaged the attention 
of scientists for a number of years. As a general 
rule islands lying within the continental shelf have 
a fauna which is closely related to that of the adja- 
cent mainland, and Cozumel Island has always been 
one of the great exceptions to this rule. Not only 
are the peculiar species very distinct, but nearly 
half of them are related to birds in the West Indies 
instead of Central America. One of them, a thrasher, 
closely related to our brown thrasher of the Eastern 
United States, is the only tropical representative of 
its group, which does not occur nearer than the 
mountains of Southern Mexico, distant some 800 
miles. 


312 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


‘“The observer is also impressed by the remark- 
able fact that a considerable group of North Amer- 
ican species which migrate South in Winter to the 
West Indies occur also on Cozumel Island (and on 
Great Key on Chinchorro Bank), although they are 
unknown in the mainland of Mexico and Central 
America. It is a reasonable inference that these 
birds cross the Caribbean from the West Indies to 
these islands every year. One also finds that these 
peculiar birds are by all odds the commonest on 
Cozumel, and that such mainland species as also 
occur are comparatively rare and local. | 

‘‘One cannot avoid the inference from these facts 
that the peculiar birds of Cozumel got there first 
and that Cozumel must have been an island for a 
long time, and was perhaps in past geological time 
far nearer to the Greater Antilles than now. 

‘“The fact that at least 100 species of land birds 
are found on the adjacent mainland which do not 
occur on Cozumel Island shows how sedentary many 
tropical species are.’’ 


To return to archeology—the extent of Maya 
territory still to be explored has been greatly re- 
duced as one result of our expedition. We discov- 
ered many interesting and important variations in 
Maya art forms, including a type of mural painting 
entirely different from anything heretofore found on 
the East Coast of Yucatan. Thisis the sort of find 
peculiarly gratifying to the student of the Maya past. 


THE TEMPLES OF TABI 313 


Many were the interesting features of architec- 
ture which we found, including proof that in sev- 
eral respects the directors of the last effloresence of 
Maya culture were more skilled than archeologists 
have previously believed. 

As we look back at this phase of the trip, the 
features that stand out most sharply are the extra- 
ordinary subterranean temple at Muyil, the mystify- 
ing round tower at Paalmul—once devoted to who 
knows what occult rites—the statues guarding 
temples on Cozumel Island with right hands raised 
as if forbidding entrance, the hidden City of Xkaret 
with its protecting wall and its lovely lagoon en- 
trance, and the fine characteristically Maya pyra- 
mid temples of Muyil and Okop. 

Knowledge which we gained largely through inci- 
dental and indirect evidence, however, gives us new 
light on the nature of the old Mayas and on their 
connections with the present world more significant 
than any mere recital of buildings found can convey. 
Walls borne down by the trunks and torn apart 
by the roots of zapote and ramon trees told us a tale 
as illuminating as any to be found in a volume of 
history. 


CHAPTER XIV 
THE FIRST AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE 


TOWARD evening on July 30, 1502, four Spanish 
caravels, looking for the long-desired coasts of 
Cathay, drew near an island off what is now North- 
ern Honduras. Thinking to annex this land for 
the crown of Spain, the discoverers felt their way 
into a cove, the hails of the leadsman on the fore- 
most caravel mingling with the cries of birds never 
before seen by European eyes. 

Four anchors dropped through the pale green of 
water, so clear that the eye could see, at six fathoms, 
the flukes bite the white sand. At this moment 
there swept around a point a canoe, eight feet wide 
and very long, though fashioned from a single log. 
The last rays of the sun flashed upon twenty-five 
dripping paddles and the fifty brown arms that drove 
them. An air of exotic and mysterious splendor was 
exhaled by the wealthy merchant who owned the 
boat as he sat under a canopy surrounded by the 
rich textiles and pottery he had come here to sell. 

There was no more traveled man then alive than 

314 


FIRST AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE 315 


the commander of those four Spanish vessels, ornate 
but clumsy, with high ends and rakish masts. He 
had voyaged much through the New World within 
the past decade, yet never before had he seen there 
clothes and general accoutrement of such a civilized 
aspect as the gold ear-rings, cotton mantles and other 
trappings of these brown traders. The European’s 
attempt to question the merchant through Cuban 
interpreters seemed to draw out the information 
that the canoe came from ‘‘a country called Maiam.”’ 

That land lay west and north of this island (which 
today is called Bonacca). The commander of the 
Spanish ships wanted to visit it. Yet on the morrow 
he turned his ships southward, lured by a high range 
of mountains that offered the baffled man his hun- 
dredth and last illusion of the long-sought Cathay. 

Thus was the distinction of being the discoverer 
of the country of the Mayas narrowly missed on his 
fourth and last voyage by the broken-hearted old 
Genoese navigator, Christopher Columbus. 

This picture of the first contact between Europeans 
and representatives of the highest native race ever 
developed in the Americas ought to be more gener- 
ally known. The merchant in his great trading 
canoe is a truer index of the life of the Mayas than 
are the painted and nearly naked warriors encoun- 
tered by the later European discoverers, whose 


316 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


greed, bigotry and tyranny awoke the hostility of a 
naturally peace-loving people. 

For that such the Mayas were, the findings of our 
expedition strongly indicate. That is to say, the 
Mayas were essentially a nation of peaceful farmers 
and traders. There is more significance in this 
statement than may appear at first. 

Bear in mind that heretofore most of the world’s 
information relating to the builders of the great 
ruined cities of Central America has concerned the 
small ruling upper class, the priests who worked 
out the elaborate and accurate calendar and the 
monarchs at whose orders public buildings were 
decorated with sculpture and painting—the admira- 
tion of discerning critics throughout the world today. 
For obvious reasons fewer data have come to hand 
concerning the huge lower class, the small mer- 
chants, peasants, artisans and slaves. Some of 
the most important of our recent findings, however, 
relate to this inconspicuous but important bulk of 
the Maya nation. 

The release of part of the population from the 
mere labor of gaining daily bread is necessary before 
any people can produce even a rudimentary science 
or art. Several hundred years before the birth of 
Christ the Mayas had accomplished this. So fertile 
was the soil of the wet tropics in what is now north- 


FIRST AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE 317 


ern Honduras and Guatemala, that the minds and 
bodies of many men were set free from humdrum 
toil. It became possible for priest-scientists to iso- 
late themselves in monasteries and observatories, 
where they studied the bright night skies, building 
up an extraordinarily comprehensive body of astro- 
nomical knowledge. : 

From the rich mural reliefs and paintings of cities 
that have emerged from the refuse of long tropical 
years it is clear that by the first century or so of the 
Christian era the arts of the Mayas were nearly 
abreast of their science. By this time they were 
making pottery and textiles that were highly es- 
teemed by neighboring tribes. Of course, the 
products of the soil continued to be the basis of 
their existence; but manufacturing and trade sprang 
up to engage the energies of the laity. 

Archeological evidence indicates that in the 
days when Christianity was young the Mayas 
were developing the arts of peace; that, as nations 
go, they then and always rather slighted the arts 
of war. Compared with other early’ American 
peoples, the Mayas had little taste for blood. 

It is true that the horrible rite of human sacrifice 
obtained some hold among them; but this was as 
nothing compared with its prevalence among the 
Aztecs of highland Mexico. Their sculptures, paint- 


318 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


ings and pictured books are the work of a religious 
and peacefully inclined people. ‘There are, indeed, a 
few representations of warriors leading home cap- 
tives; but the figure of the soldier in Maya art is 
negligible. That of the priest is ubiquitous. The 
Maya War God, the ‘Black Captain,’ enjoyed 
no such importance as did the bloody Huitzilo- 
pochtli in the pantheon of the Aztecs. 

The manner of the Maya resistance to the Toltec 
invasion, like the manner of the later Maya resist- 
ance to the Spanish invasion, shows that the Mayas 
did not take kindly to fighting. - 

Drouth, starvation and epidemics led the way to 
the downfall of the Toltec monarchy in the middle 
of the eleventh century. Remnants of this warlike 
nation left the region of the present Mexico City and 
drifted southward. 

About 1200 A.D. they seem to have begun a series 
of successful battles with the Mayas of Northern 
Yucatan, who had just been enjoying a renaissance 
of culture under the league of three great cities, 
Chichen Itza, Uxmal and Mayapan. These Tol- 
tecs were wandering adventurers and mercenaries, 
their national epic now nearly told. Yet the frag- 
ments of Toltec architecture we found even on 
Cozumel Island, the easternmost outpost of the 
Mayas, show that the northern fighters ran through 


FIRST AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE 319 


that fat southern country as wolves run through a 
sheepfold. 

Although Spanish commentators of those times 
were eager to find excuses for the Conquistadores, 
eager to put the best possible light upon their 
aggressions, interlinear evidence convinces the neu- 
tral reader that hostilities were usually provoked by 
the Europeans and that the Mayas were ever ready 
for honorable peace. Summarizing the reports of 
the contemporary Spanish writers, the English his- 
torian, Fancourt, tells how the Indians of Eastern 
Yucatan had had ample reason, by previous experi- 
ence with Spanish expeditions, to distrust the mo- 
tives with which the Conquistador Montejo came 
among them in 1527. Yet the Indians ‘‘were unwill- 
ing to commence hostilities and suffered the Span- 
iards to disembark on the mainland,’ which was 
promptly annexed by Montejo in the name of the 
Emperor-King Don Carlos. 

Later 200 Spaniards occupied the Indian town of 
Tihoo (the site of Merida, present capital of the 
State of Yucatan). This occupation aroused the 
Indians as nothing else had done, and their army 
grew to a size variously estimated at from 40,000 to 
70,000. Cogulludo describes them as naked, except 
for loin cloths, their bodies smeared with colored earth 
of various tints, ornaments and stone hanging from 


320 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


their pierced nostrils and ears. They were armed 
with bows and arrows, pikes, darts, lances tipped 
with flint and huge two-handed swords of hard- 
wood. Blowing conch shells and striking their 
spears on their shields of large turtle shells, they 
advanced on the Europeans from all sides “‘like 
fiercest devils.” 

This fight was the bloodiest in the history of the 
conquest of Yucatan. It lasted nearly all day. 
The Indians were completely routed and their 
spirit forever broken. Cogulludo says: ‘‘The fame 
of the Spaniards rose higher than before and the 
Indians never rallied again for a general battle.’ 

As our expedition skirted shores once eagerly 
scanned for landing places by lookouts on the war 
vessels of Grijalva and Montejo, and as we cut our 
way through jungles where the feet of the Spanish 
men-at-arms had once trampled the tender growth 
of the wide Indian cornfields, we were constantly 
alert to discover remains that would throw light on 
the question, were the Mayas a warlike nation? 
Deserted Spanish forts we found aplenty, guarded 
now by nothing more deadly than stinting ants and 
the thorns of the thick bush. The testimony of the 
Maya ruins, which we found in abundance, answered 
the question with an emphatic negative. 

The city of Xkaret is surrounded by a wall, but 


FIRST AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE 321 


it is the wall of a people who sought security, not a 
wall built by men who knew much about fighting. 
It showed us none of the moats and turrets with 
which old Spanish forts were strengthened. 

With military works a rarity in the Maya terri- 
tory, walls that have an opposite connotation are 
found on every hand. These are much lower and 
narrower than the defensive walls, and are not un- 
like the familiar stone fences that mark off divisions 
of property in our own stony New England. There 
is reason to believe that they served a similar pur- 
pose among these ancient Americans—an agricul- 
tural and commercial people like ourselves. 

It is well known that some of the fine roads that 
the Romans left to their successors in Europe were 
built for military purposes. Several elevated stone 
roads comparing favorably with the work of Julius 
Cesar’s engineers have been found in the Maya 
area; but they seem to have been constructed for 
anything but warlike purposes. The ‘‘Via Sacra” 
at Chichen Itza was just what its name implies, a 
holy road down which the priests led the virgins to 
be sacrificed to the God of Rain. This god presided 
over a sinister sunken pool into which these hapless 
maidens were hurled. The causeway leading up to 
the city of Coba is believed by some archzologists 
to have connected with Chichen Itza—in which 


322 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


case its use was probably religious and civil, not 
military. Edward Herbert Thompson, who exam- 
ined this road several years ago, believes there may 
have been a continuation of it on the unexplored 
eastern side of Coba, for use by pilgrims bound for 
the island of Cozumel, known to have been an objec- 
tive of many journeys taken by devout Mayas. 
In fact, it is quite likely that our Xkaret, with its 
fine canoe harbor, marked the mainland terminus of 
some such pilgrimage route, being, in short, the point 
where the faithful were ferried across to the holy 
island. | 

With the exception of the twelve odd miles of open 
water, there may have been a fine stone road all the 
way from the chief temple of Chichen Itza to a 
temple, measured and photographed by Spinden, 
on the eastward and ocean side of Cozumel. A 
link in such a transportation system may well have 
been the causeway we found crossing a fresh water 
lake in this extraordinary island. 

So much for the contention that the Mayas were 
a peaceful people. Now for the evidence we have 
found that aside from the small upper tlass, engaged 
in art and science, the Mayas devoted much time 
to trade and commerce. 

In conquering a large part of the New World, 
the first motive of the Spaniards was mercenary. 


FIRST AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE 323 


Consequently they were quick to observe any signs 
of prosperity among the natives whom they encoun- 
tered. Their comments upon signs of this sort of 
thing among the Mayas are much more numerous, 
unfortunately for archeology, than are their refer- 
ences to native culture, toward which they felt 
hardly a passing curiosity. They reported the 
riches of Indian trading flotillas and described in 
detail the golden and jeweled ornaments of Maya 
caciques. ; 

There are many Spanish allusions to the cotton of 
the natives and to ‘“‘nequen cloth,” perhaps a sort of 
matting of henequen, or sisal fiber, the chief product 
of Yucatan today. These products are but two of 
the many gifts of the American Indian to the world. 
In the long catalogue Spinden places corn, potatoes, 
sweet potatoes, tomatoes, pumpkins, squashes, cocoa, 
peanuts, tobacco, cocaine, quinine, rubber and many 
other valuable things. The plants of America show 
signs of having been domesticated longer than do 
the plants of Asia. This evidence is annoying to 
dogmatists who hold that America was settled from 
Asia! 

The Spaniards soon learned, however, that the 
gold and precious stones the Mayas wore had been 
imported to Yucatan, and that opportunities for 
gain there were much fewer than in Peru and in 


324 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


upland Mexico. Adventurers flocked to the stand- 
ards of Pizarro and Cortes, in these respective regions, 
many of them deserters from the force of Montejo 
in Yucatan. 

Spanish historians tell us that the colored cotton 
fabrics of the Mayas were distributed over the 
whole of New Spain. Certain types of Maya pot- 
tery have also been found over a wide area, indicat- 
ing commercial distribution of this product. The 
Mayas made many different classes of pottery for 
various markets, and they were very proficient at 
decorating it, applying modified hieroglyphs or the 
geometric patterns so common in their architectural 
decoration. 

On the other hand, the list of trade articles found 
in the Maya area and certainly not made there is a 
large one. As already noted Spinden’s work in 
Colombia some years ago established the fact that 
most of the pearls and emeralds of the Mayas were 
imported from that region. The turquoise, found 
by the Spanish in Yucatan, came from what is now 
our State of New Mexico. Even if Colombia and 
New Mexico marked the southern and northern 
limits, respectively, of Maya trade, these bounded 
an area of which any nation confined to primitive 
means of communication might well be proud. 

Material for the ornaments of gold and jadeite 


FIRST AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE 325 


worn by the Mayas came from the highlands of Mex- 
ico and from Central America, in payment for fig- 
ured cotton goods and graceful pottery. 

There is no doubt, then, that the Mayas main- 
tained extensive trade relations with other American 
nations. Recent additions to the world’s knowledge 
of these people of Yucatan make one wonder whether 
toward the end of their history commerce was not 
taking almost more of their energy than the ever- 
necessary agriculture. 

Heretofore inland trade routes have engaged the 
attention of students of Maya history. Pretty 
surely the famous march of Cortes from the high- 
lands of Mexico to Guatemala was along inland roads 
of commerce. Another overland trail connected 
the highlands of Mexico with the big cities of north- 
ern Yucatan, and probably an offshoot left this, in 
what is now the State of Campeche, to connect 
with the southward route Cortes followed. 

Our expedition brings home very strong evidence 
of a water route down the east coast of Yucatan. 
Strung along this reef-bound coast we found good 
canoe harbors connected with ruined trading towns 
at Xkaret, Paalmul, Chakalal, Ac, Acomal and 
Muyil. 

Probably there was much more shipping from the 
region of Xkaret and Cozumel southward than from 


326 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


that vicinity northward, around Cape Catoche. In 
other words, the overland trail from the big cities 
of northern Yucatan, by which pilgrims used to 
reach Cozumel Island, was pretty certainly an im- 
portant artery of trade to the coastal cities we found, 
forming a missing link in the water route to the 
south. 

When Spinden and I crossed the Yucatan Pen- 
insula we found a considerable inland area south of 
Chichen Itza in which evidences of Maya occupa- 
tion were much thinner than in the vicinity of that 
great city and along the coast. In short, there seems 
to have been no considerable commerce by land route 
due south from the Chichen Itza and Coba region. 

The overland trade route from that district to 
Guatemala and Honduras, which went west to 
Campeche and then southward by the trails Cortes 
followed, was much longer than the land and water 
route via Xkaret or Paalmul or Chakalal. We 
believe that this latter route was much used, from 
the second occupancy of Chichen Itza in the tenth 
century up to shortly before the arrival of the 
Spaniards. 

When all the evidence for the existence of this 
coastal trade route is reviewed, one fact stands out 
above all others. That is the extremely thick 
settlement of this region, with traces of extensive 


FIRST AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE 327 


public works. A purely pious interest in the shrines 
of Cozumel Island would not have produced such 
extensive construction. 

The canal that connects the two lakes east of the 
ruins of Muyil was not dug for the passage of pil- 
grims. Some of the high buildings overlooking the 
dangerous rocks that the trade winds whiten with 
foam were lighted to God, no doubt, but they were 
also excellent beacons to belated argosies bearing 
the incense and feathers and jade so dear to the 
deities of a nation of peaceful traders. 


Examples of the mysteriousred hand. The four in the center are a con- 
ventionalized form found by Spinden on Cozumel Island, indicating that 
whatever religious or political significance the red hand may have had it 
also had at times a primarily artistic use. The imprint at the left was 
made by wetting the human hand in red paint or dye and slapping it against 
the wall. The two at the right were made by holding the hand against the 
wall and painting around it. 


CHAPTER XV 


WHAT FORBIDDEN CITIES MAY TELL 


Itzamna, Ahpuch, and Kukulcan, 

Where are you now, that were loved of man! 
The gentle son of an Eastern Jew 

Has made but forgotten names of you. 


On ruined palace and crumbling wall 
The fat and sleepy iguanas crawl; 
No temple bell for sacrifice rings 

But only the lonely moan bird wings. 


Under the jungle of Yucatan 

Lies the mystery of Mayapan; 

Did these who worshipped the sun and rain 
Choose rather death than the Cross of Spain? 


THIS question has stirred historians and philos- 
ophers since the first report that there were great 
white cities in the jungles of Central America fil- 
tered out to the scientific world. What was the fate 
of that high early American civilization? 

There is no longer much reason to doubt that the 
present so-called Maya Indians are of the same 


race as the people the Spaniards found occupying 
328 


WHAT FORBIDDEN CITIES MAY TELL 329 


the cities conspicuous for their ‘‘tall towers’’ and 
‘“‘very large houses well built of stone and plaster.” 
Therefore, if those natives who were occupying some 
of the limestone cities in 1517 were of the same race 
as the builders, we may say with assurance that the 
Indians of present Yucatan are descended from the 
great architects. 

““Why has there ever been any reason to doubt 
this?’’ you may ask, with a rather natural im- 
patience. 

The doubt arose and the doubt has continued to 
live in many minds, first, because of the great dis- 
crepancy between the high culture evidenced by 
the ruins and the low intelligence of contemporary 
natives, and second, because from 1517 to the pres- 
ent time the Indians of Yucatan have appeared to 
possess no traditions of a high past, no ability to 
explain the origin of vestiges of high attainment in 
art and science which lie about their country on 
every hand. 

For instance, an account of the ruined city of 
Uxmal, given in 1586 by a companion of Alonzo 
Ponce, a Franciscan delegate, says: 


“The Indians do not know surely who built 
these buildings nor when they were built, though 
some of them did their best in trying to explain the 


330 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


matter, but in doing so showed foolish fancies and 
dreams, and nothing fitted into the facts or was 
satisfactory.”’ 


In short there was much material at hand for 
the construction of the theory that the Indians met 
by Cordoba and Grijalva were members of collat- 
eral tribes which had occupied the stone cities after 
the builders had disappeared. 

But gradually this tenet has lost weight, and an 
alternative has gained increasing credibility. This 
is the postulate that the Yucatan Indians of the 
early sixteenth century were direct descendants 
of the city builders, but degenerate descendants. 
In short, that the culture of the Mayas had already 
received its death blow and that only the dregs 
still lived when the Spaniards came. 

The acceptance of this alternate theory is made 
easier by a constantly increasing body of proof 
that even if the modern Indians have no articulate 
traditions of the men who built the temples they 
have an inherited reverence for these shrines and 
they still use forms of ritual identical with or very 
similar to ceremonies of the First Americans. 

Of course, examples of ritualistic survivals may 
be attributable to instinctive imitation which need 
not imply any understanding of the ancient theology 


WHAT FORBIDDEN CITIES MAY TELL 331 


or any knowledge of the men who founded it. But 
the existence of such old rites today does strongly 
suggest that the Indians of the modern bush are of 
the stock of the old astronomers. 

Examples of such continuance of ancient rites 
have been found in recent years by such leaders 
among the men who are solving the riddle of the 
Mayas as Professor A. M. Tozzer of Harvard, 
Professor Marshall H. Saville of the Heye Founda- 
tion and Dr. Sylvanus G. Morley of the Carnegie 
Institution. 

Mr. Edward Herbert Thompson, who owns the 
land around the ruins of Chichen Itza, tells me he 
recently saw Maya Indians in that region perform- 
ing rites to the God of Rain. The British explorer, 
Dr. Thomas Gann, says that in 1924 or ’25 he bought 
from an Indian boy in British Honduras an entire 
outfit of masks, costumes and musical instruments 
for the Maya ‘‘devil dance,’’ all this weird parapher- 
nalia ‘‘made locally from ancient models handed 
down from father to son for generations.” 

I have already told how on the southern border 
of Mexico Dr. Spinden found figurines placed on 
an old Maya altar by modern natives who had 
made the figurines themselves. And how in north- 
ern Yucatan he found Indians putting out bowis 
of posole as offerings to the Wind God with little 


332 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


wooden crosses similar to those we found in crumb- 
ling temples throughout the wide area covered by 
our expedition. 

In spite of the mixture of Catholic ritual these 
Indians have not really accepted Christianity. On 
the contrary many of them hate its very name. In 
the heart of the thick bush of Quintana Roo Spinden 
and I found magnificent Spanish cathedrals ten- 
anted only by bats and buzzards while within a few 
miles copal was burning in Maya temples, albeit 
the hands that brought the offerings had lost the 
skill that built these structures centuries ago. 

Of course, the mere hostility to outsiders, which 
the independent Indians of Quintana Roo have 
shown for many years, does not necessarily prove 
the continuation of ancient customs and a jealousy 
for old holy places. Much of this animosity was 
due to commercial motives. For years the Indians 
were struggling against Mexican taxation and trade 
exploitation and fired at all unidentified outsiders 
without waiting to learn their motives. But there 
can be no doubt, in view of our recent experiences, 
that they are also extremely suspicious of foreign 
interest in their altars. 

Our discovery that there are in the heart of the 
Quintana Roo bush two forbidden cities, that the 
Indians ‘‘still use,’’ holds important and exciting 


Small wooden crosses put by modern Indians on altars of ancient 
temples—combining a little Christianity with old rites 


Tent -te Oh 


mht 


? ‘5 
2 . 
i. = , : ‘ + *% 
i / « an i . 
+ - .") 
“° 5 ey 
7 4 
. : 
Pd 1, t ed ‘ ’ 
‘ s 
4 
5 
1 oe % 3 
~ f } 
a ‘ 
i 
: i 
~ ah . 
K Y 


WHAT FORBIDDEN CITIES MAY TELL 333 


possibilities. Since the first European and Amer- 
ican explorers began to penetrate the Maya coun- 
try there have been rumors of cities in which a rem- 
nant of the old civilization lives on, undisturbed by 
outside change. As recently as 1842 (and that is 
very recent from an archzologist’s point of view), 
John L. Stephens, the explorer, was told by a Span- 
ish padre of such a thing in the wild district of Vera 
Paz, Guatemala. 


‘The thing that roused us,’’ said Stephens, ‘‘was 
the padre’s assertion that four days on the road to 
Mexico, on the other side of the great sierra, was a 
living city, large and populous, occupied by In- 
dians, precisely in the same state as before the dis- 
covery of America. He had heard of it many 
years before at the village of Chajul, and was told 
by the villagers that from the topmost ridge of the 
sierra this city was distinctly visible. 

‘He was then young, and with much labor climbed 
to the naked summit of the sierra, from which, at a 
height of ten or twelve thousand feet, he looked 
over an immense plain extending to Yucatan and 
the Gulf of Mexico, and saw at a great distance a 
large city spread over a great space, and with tur- 
rets white and glittering in the sun. The tradition- 
ary account of the Indians of Chajul is that no white 
man has ever reached this city; that the inhabitants 
speak the Maya language, are aware that a race of 
strangers has conquered the whole country around, 


334 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


and murder any white man who attempts to enter 
their territory.” 


Even if there was such an occupied Maya city in 
Stephens’ time, it may well be deserted now, al- 
though that part of mountainous Guatemala is 
still far from railroads and other agents of modern 
civilization. But the fact that this great American 
archeologist believed possible the survival of a 
sort of ‘‘island’’ of ancient Maya civilization stim- 
ulates the imagination when we wonder what is to 
be found in Huntichmul and Ichmul. 

The Maya Lieutenant’s remark that these cities 
are “‘still being used’’ may mean simply that the 
natives are making offerings in temples there, as 
we found them doing at other places all over the 
eastern part of the Yucatan Peninsula. But the 
fact that we were permitted to visit the other spots 
and forbidden to go to Huntichmul and Ichmul 
suggests that these latter places have some special 
importance in native eyes. What it is science would 
give a good deal to know. 

Granting that the present Indians are descended 
from the old architects I have never been able to 
accept the argument that Spanish oppression alone 
could have killed all tribal memory of the past— 
if it is true that there are no surviving traditions 


WHAT FORBIDDEN CITIES MAY TELL 335 


among the modern natives. Without a doubt the 
efforts of the Europeans to stamp out the native 
patriotism and religion were extremely rigorous, 
stopping not even at torture and massacre. But one 
has only to look at the cases of other conquered 
peoples like the Poles, Finns, and Armenians to 
realize the weakness of the argument that early 
Spanish oppression was alone responsible for native 
ignorance of the great past. For these other ex- 
amples show that the more you oppress a people the 
more they cling to memories of the proud days 
before their conquerors had come. And a knowl- 
edge of writing is not necessary to keep such brave 
national traditions alive. 

In previous chapters I have referred to some of 
the causes which have been suggested as causing 
the demoralization of Maya civilization which almost 
certainly occurred before the first Spanish caraval 
came. We have seen that one of these causes was 
the civil wars which broke out among the Mayas of 
northern Yucatan about the year 1200 A.D., and which 
were fostered and utilized selfishly by invading Tol- 
tecs from the highlands of Mexico. Probably an- 
other very potent cause of the collapse was a pesti- 
lence which came in the wake of the civil strife and 
which was very likely what we call yellow fever. 
Diego de Landa, Sanchez de Aguilar, Cogolludo and 


336 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


other early Spanish commentators mention native 
traditions of great epidemics before the arrival of 
the white men. 

Moreover, as Spinden has shown,’ several docu- 
ments written in Spanish characters but in the 
Maya tongue, and doubtless based upon earlier 
records in hieroglyphs, mention a terrible pestilence 
which broke out sometime during the twenty-year 
period called Katun 4 Ahau in the Maya calendar. 
This period extended from 1477 to 1497 by our 
count. In the Chronicle of Tizimin for this period 
and for Katun 2 Ahau (1497 to 1517) are these 
entries: 


Can Ahau-uchi mayacimlal ocnalcuchil ich paa. 
Cabil Ahau-uchci nohkakil. 


The translation of these is: 


“Four Ahau, the pestilence, the general death, took 
place in the fortress. 
“Two Ahau, the small-pox took place.” 


Now here is a distinction between the small-pox 
and what is called ‘‘the general death.”’ Dr. Spin- 
den has shown that the latter was yellow fever. 
There is not space here for the evidence on which 


t* Yellow Fever—First and Last,’’ by Herbert Joseph Spinden: 
World's Work, December, 1921. 


WHAT FORBIDDEN CITIES MAY TELL 337 


he bases this highly important conclusion. Suffice 
it to mention the existence of other old native docu- 
ments referring to a pestilence of which one symp- 
tom was xe kik, blood vomit, and the existence of 
early Indian drawings showing men vomiting blood. 
The vomiting of blood is one of the characteristic 
marks of yellow fever. 

Now does not the invisible ink in which the mys- 
tery was written begin to become legible? Among 
the Mayas a knowledge of the arts and sciences was 
never held by any but a privileged, educated minor- 
ity. If civil war, Toltec invasion, yellow fever and, 
finally, Spanish tyranny wiped out the flower of 
Maya population the descendants of the slaves who 
piled the limestone blocks of palace walls might 
well have no more articulate tradition of the great 
past than is possessed today by General May’s 
tattered hunters and chicleros. 

The first period in Maya research is ending. 
There is still much surface exploration to be done, 
but it must be accompanied by more intensive 
study if we are to solve the riddle of the Mayas 
before all the evidence has been destroyed by time 
and nature, which work fast in the tropics. The 
more hieroglyphs we have on record or the more 
repetitions of the same glyphs the more hope is there 
of learning the meaning of most or all of them. 


338 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


Therefore, one of the most pressing needs is more 
excavation. At present the work of the Carnegie 
Institution at Chichen Itza is the only piece of ex- 
cavation which foreign archeologists are permitted 
to do in Mexican territory—and, with all respect to 
the Mexicans, 99 per cent. of the piecing together of 
the Maya puzzle has been done by foreigners. 

A visit to Chichen Itza is a revelation of the pos- 
sibilities of the spade. What was a mere mound of 
stone and earth covered with bushes and trees when 
I was there four years ago stands out now in the 
beauty of the carved white limestone pillars and 
walls of the magnificent Temple of,the Warriors. 
Thanks to the intelligent labors of Dr. Morley, Mr. 
Morris, and the other members of the Carnegie 
Institution Chichen Itza Project, most of this splen- 
did metropolis at least will be saved for the world. 

There is no doubt that under many of the Maya 
buildings are tombs such as that discovered by Ed- 
ward Herbert Thompson under a temple at Chichen. 
It is here that one may hope to find more codices, 
more ancient books of record. A fragment of a 
codex was found in the ruins of a building in an- 
other city of northern Yucatan by Professor Saville, 
but it had been too much exposed to weather by the 
decay of the building to be legible. There are still 
plenty of codices to be found, although they are 


WHAT FORBIDDEN CITIES MAY TELL 339 


doubtless in an advanced state of decay, which will 
necessitate extreme care in handling them. If an 
enlightened international public opinion could bring 
the Mexican Government to lift its unfortunate ban 
on excavation immediately a huge step would have 
been taken toward the recovery of the complete story 
of the first families of America. Twenty years 
from now, even ten years from now, it may be too 
late. 

While work on the stone inscriptions and the dis- 
covered codices continues the last fragment of the 
nearly pure Maya race must be studied in retreats 
like Huntichmul and Ichmul before it is extinguished 
—as it surely will be soon. All races have their 
day, and the Maya fire is nearly out. Although 
most of the glyphs are ideographic some are pho- 
netic. There is an opportunity to recover these 
phonetic glyphs by an intensive study of Maya as 
spoken today. 

The future belongs to the ethnologist as much as 
to the archeologist. Perhaps the greatest oppor- 
tunity in the field of Maya research is that which 
is open to the young scientist willing to cast in his 
lot with these people virtually for life—willing to 
settle among these Indians and share their primitive 
standards until their confidence has been so won 
that he will be admitted to the very thoughts which 


340 SILVER CITIES OF YUCATAN 


they have when they worship in the temples of 
such cities as the two in Quintana Roo that our 
expedition was forbidden even to look upon from a 
distance. 


~ 
if 
¢ 
7; 
‘ ; 
. e 
% 
2 . 
- 
Ss + 
. ‘ 
. 
2 
' 
4 
baal 
—_— 
—" 
7 = 
\ 
+ 
/ 
= 
. 
. . 
, 
> 
i 
‘ 7 
* 1 
- . \ 
{ 
' . 
f ‘ 
4 : 
. 
= 7 
' " 
¥ a fs + . ry i), 
. Ae Aer be 
a Fi Lie 
De VAI Wend eer «Pe ce 
é BAW AG te ae Peer * 


il 


id temple at Muy 


llo—a pyram 


i 


El Cast 


Sete 


ereatkh 


<2 
halt 


lesen aoe te lerpemn too om werent ome rome ot 
apna iors are te fe ; 43 ne = giet Ba aS 
pe ath wee eh > — ou Xi i we. pardoes nant [Pes 


